fair. I have no such confidence with respect to his. I would sacrifice much to your convenience. But I cannot tell you how my whole heart and soul rise up against the thought of sacrificing anything to his love of domination. one. My reason for thinking that, in the present case, Brougham was exercising an unjustifiable dictation, was a very simple The transaction was, as you say, and as I could not but feel, one which required very special circumstances to justify it. Now, I could see no special circumstance except Brougham's will and pleasure. Nor do I yet see any. I have been a very anxious observer of French politics. I have talked with very intelligent men on both sides of the Channel; and I solemnly declare to you that I am utterly unable to imagine how it can be a matter of necessity, or of pressing expediency, that a Whig manifesto about the late Revolution should appear before the meeting of Parliament. Of course it is desirable that just views of so important an event should be entertained. throughout the country; but nobody, I believe, expects that any propositions directly relating to the changes in France will be brought forward during the next Session by any party. Brougham chose, however, to persist in his demand. That circumstance, I think, and always thought, fully justified you. His talents are not, I think, displayed to most advantage in the Edinburgh Review. But his withdrawing, and his direct hostility, which would assuredly follow his withdrawing, might do immense injury. Without disputing whether his articles are better than mine, I am sure that his secession would do you more harm than mine. These considerations seemed to me to exculpate you completely. What it might be advisable for me to do was, as I think you must allow, a very different question. I never doubted that your intentions towards me were perfectly friendly, but I thought that you would find it impossible to carry them into effect. The difficulties of your situation justified, as I could not deny, your proceedings with regard to me. But they also, I thought, justified my secession. I have no right to expect that you or any editor will risk the ruin of a Review in order to spare me a little mortification. But I have a perfect right to keep as much as I can out of all connection with a Review which can be saved from ruin only by measures mortifying to me. Perhaps I have said more about the past than is proper in a letter of reconciliation. But reconciliation is scarcely the word. For there has been no interruption of personal kindness and esteem; and I really wished to explain clearly the principle on which I have acted. As for the future, I require no pledge. When any such case as that which has now occurred shall present itself, act as you think best for the Review. If you decide against me, I shall not, I assure you, think myself ill-used, at least by you. I shall attribute whatever may happen to the extreme difficulty of your situation. On the other hand, you must not think hardly of me if.I should then put into execution the purpose which I at present relinquish,—if I should, without the least anger towards you, and with real regret for any inconvenience which you may sustain, withdraw from a connection which, I sincerely assure you, has never, as far as you are personally concerned, given me anything but pleasure. And now, my dear sir, let us finally dismiss this unpleasant topic. Yet I should wish for a few lines from you to say that the conduct which, without the least unkind or suspicious feeling towards you, and purely, as I intended, in self-defence, I have adopted on this occasion, has not diminished that personal regard which I flattered myself that you felt for me, and which will, I hope, be proof against any of the occurrences which may disturb our literary connection. A day or two after I had written to you from Paris, I heard again from Dr. Lardner, who mentioned his application to you. The rest need no longer be a secret. I have agreed to write an account of the political changes of France since the Restoration, and of this late Revolution, for his Cabinet Cyclopædia. I hoped to have finished this task by Christmas. My article on the Italian Poets must be postponed till the Spring. But I can easily find time for a short paper in the Winter Number. The Jews have been urging me to say something about their claims; and I really think that the question might be discussed, both on general and on particular grounds, in a very attractive manner. What do you think of this plan? Believe me ever, yours most truly, COLONEL TORRENS. T. B. MACAULAY. London, October 28, 1830. MY DEAR SIR,-Allow me to congratulate you on the excellent Number of the Edinburgh Review which has just appeared. To me and, I hope, to many others, the most interesting article is that on the Philosophy of Perception.1 I think I perceive symptoms of a reviving taste for the science of Mind in this country; and it is to be hoped that the example of France, and an occasional article in the Edinburgh, will stimulate the national intellect to engage in profound inquiries, and render metaphysical studies again prevalent among our educated classes. May I request the favour of a line saying whether the article on Crombie's Theology, of which I spoke when I had the pleasure of seeing you in London, is likely soon to appear in the Review. I have just read the article on Dr. Morehead's Dialogues on Natural and Revealed Religion; and, judging from that article, I should conceive that the work of Dr. Crombie is much more original and profound. So far from evincing, like Dr. Morehead, considerable partiality for the a priori argument, Crombie totally demolishes it. He who affirms the possibility of proving the existence of Deity by an a priori argument, asserts, as it appears to me, his own entire ignorance of the philosophy of logic. The a priori argument, when applied to theological questions, must make atheists, as, when applied to political ones, it makes revolutionists and anarchists. In all moral, as in all physical inquiries, there are no safe paths except those of experience and induction. Dr. Crombie, in exposing and rendering palpable the errors in the logical process adopted by Clarke, and others of the a priori school, has rendered a 1 Art. 9, October, 1830, by Sir William Hamilton. 2 It was published in the Number for September, 1831. distinguished service to theology, and to the moral sciences generally; and were public attention directed to this service, it would go far to explode the arrogant yet ignorant pretensions to demonstration, which are constantly insulting the understanding of the country in the Radical reviews and newspapers. Dr. Crombie's work possesses another important merit. Paley, in his Natural Theology, commences the a posteriori argument with a petitio principii, and assumes that which it was his business to prove. Judging from the article in the Review, Morehead does the same. Both say that the order of the universe shows intelligence and design; and this proves an intelligent cause-designing mind. But the atheist denies that the order of the universe shows intelligence and design; and it is absurd to obviate his objection by assuming the very fact the existence of which he denies. The writings of Paley and Morehead may be exceedingly useful in fixing the attention, and warming the feelings of those who already admit the existence of intelligence and design; but they can have no other effect upon the atheist than that of confirming his disbelief. Now the distinguishing merit of Dr. Crombie is, that he does not beg the question; that he does not commence the argument for the existence of Deity by assuming the existence of intelligence and design-which is no better than saying, God is, because he is; but that he proves the existence of intelligence and design by an induction from facts which the atheist cannot deny without contradicting his own consciousness. In my humble opinion, his work is, without any exception, the most conclusive and philosophical treatise on the existence of Deity in the language. I might not have ventured to express my individual opinion on a subject so profound and important, were it not that I have the sanction of very competent and high authority for the judgment I have formed. A note from the Bishop of Salisbury is now before me, in which he says that Dr. Crombie's work on Natural Theology is the best treatise on the subject; and Sir James Mackintosh, who has so accurately surveyed the whole field of meta physical disquisition, speaks in approving terms, not merely of its value but of its originality.-Very faithfully yours, R. TORRENS. THOMAS CARLYLE. Craigenputtoch, Dumfries, MY DEAR SIR,-I am much obliged by your favourable reception of the proposition touching my brother, and no less so by your wish that I should write something for you in the Edinburgh Review. I have already written in that Review, and should be very happy to write in it again; as indeed there can be no more respectable vehicle for any British man's speculations than it is and has always been. My respected friend your predecessor had some difficulty with me in adjusting the respective prerogatives of Author and Editor, for though not, as I hope, insensible to fair reason, I used sometimes to rebel against what I reckoned mere authority, and this partly perhaps as a matter of literary conscience; being wont to write nothing without studying it if possible to the bottom, and writing always with an almost painful feeling of scrupulosity, that light editorial hacking and hewing to right and left was in general nowise to my mind. In what degree the like difficulties might occur between you and me I cannot pretend to guess; however, if you are willing, then I also am willing, to try. Occasionally of late I have been meditating an essay on Byron, which, on appearance of Mr. Moore's second volume, now soon expected, I should have no objection to attempt for you. Of Mr. Moore himself I should say little, or rather, perhaps, as he may be a favourite of yours, nothing; neither would my opinion of Byron prove very heterodox; my chief aim would be to see him and show him, not, as is too often the way (if I could help it), to write merely about him and about him. For the rest, though no Whig in the strict sense, I have no disposition to run amuck against any set of men or of opinions; but only to put forth certain truths that I feel in me, with all sincerity, |