abuse. Let their minds once escape the agitations of the slavery-question, forced upon them by the infamous schemes of filibusters and propagandists, and they will be directed to their other great fountain of pernicious influence. We should soon after expect to see the Congress assert its proper control over removals; we should expect to see the diplomatic service, which is a sort of honored asylum for the decayed or rejected politicians of the states, retrenched; we should expect to see the cumbrous post-office establishment, with its bands of pretorians, now operating as a check upon the speedy diffusion of knowledge, abolished; we should expect to see two-thirds at least of the remaining appointments resumed by the people, and the overgrown functions of the executive, generally, remodeled. Our confidence would rest in the recuperative energies of the people; in their general intelligence; in their common sense; in their love of justice, and in the fact, despite Mr. Calhoun's theories, that the persons interested in bad government must always be few compared with the many who are interested in good govern

ment.

With the end at which Mr. Calhoun aims-the arrest of centralization-we cordially sympathize; but we hold that that end is to be most effectively and harmoniously reached-not by a system of independent governments with a negative upon the action of each other, which would infallibly lead to anarchy -but by an original distribution of the functions of government among coördinate local governments, with impartial

tribunals for the decision of cases of disputed jurisdiction. The organized parts of every large community should be treated as individuals are treated by society. They are all placed on an equal footing; their rights are protected by the fundamental law, and their disputes are settled, not by themselves, but by the courts. Were each one allowed a negative, in his own case, there would soon be, inevitably, an end to the social union. Adjudication, and not nullification, is the true remedy for wrongs. Nullification is but disguised revolution; but adjudication is contentment, peace, and security.

We hold as strongly as Mr. Calhoun ever did, to the necessity and importance of the doctrine of local self-government; but, we hold it on broader grounds: not simply that the separate parts of a nation may be a check upon the other parts, but because it is the most efficient means of distributing power, and of educating the people. All consolidated governments must sooner or later die of plethora; and the people under them must sooner or later lose the habit, and with that the desire of government; and a despot must step in, if for no other reason, to save them from themselves. But a true system of local governments, where the parts cannot be anarchical, nor the centre oppressive, exercises its people in the practice of every political virtue, and trains them to self-respect and felicity and honour and is capable of being extended, as we believe that under Providence it yet will be, to all the nations of the globe.

-Everybody has his private and particular quarrel with the post-office. We all lose our letters; we all waste precious time, and more precious temper, over the perpetual breaks and defects of our postal system; but few of us are fully convinced of the fact, that the existence of such a system is a disgrace to the country. We imagine the evils to be less in extent and less remediable than they really are. Mr. PLINY MILES's capital pamphlet on Postal Reform ought to change all this. Mr. Miles has resided several years in London, and he has been connected with our own Post-office Department. He, therefore, speaks of that which he doth know; and the results of his investigations ought to scandalize us into energy.

According to Mr. Miles, we are now enduring a postal system which worries government, vexes and injures the public, demoralizes the officials, and pleases nobody.

At the same time, various European nations, and especially Great Britain, are quietly enjoying a postal system which enriches the government, serves and benefits the public, controls the officials, and satisfies everybody. We commend these facts to the consideration of all our readers, excepting those engaged to deliver orations on the coming Fourth of July.

In 1854, the expenses of the United States Post-office, for carrying 120,000,000 letters, amounted to two millions of dollars over and above the receipts of the Department. Of these letters, about four millions, or one in thirty, died, and were damned to the flames at Washington city.

In the same year, the expenses of the British Post-office, for conveying 450,000,000 letters, amounted to six millions of dollars LESS than the receipts of the Department; and of these letters rather less than five thousand finally died, and were laid aside to await the chances of revival.

In 1854, New York, with a population of three quarters of a million, had to content itself with one post-office-and that a dirty, shabby, inadequate den, far from the centre of population.

In the same year, London, with ȧ popu

AND

REPRINTS.

lation only thrice as large, was served by five hundred post-offices.

The simple truth is, that some two hundred thousand inhabitants of New York live so far from the post-office as to be not much better off, in that respect, than the people of some small country district which the mail reaches once a week!

In 1854, the "drop letters," or those for "local circulation," amounted to 715,000; which, at one cent each, brought in a revenue of 7,150 dollars!

In the same year, the "drop letters" of only six cities in England numbered 74,000,000; which, at a penny each, brought in a revenue of $2,225,000, of which sum $1,500,000 was clear net profit!

Mr. Miles states, that in London he has often sent a letter by post to a distant part of the city, and received a reply within three hours. Should we not think the millennium at hand in New York if such a thing could be said of our post?

Mr. Miles does not content himself with attacking this or that abuse, the senseless regulation of compulsory prepayment, or our equally senseless registration system; he shows conclusively that the only conditions on which we can hope for a decent, orderly, and economical Postoffice, are the following:-1. The abolition of franking. 2. A uniform rate of letterpostage of two cents on all single letters; and a uniform method of rating and weighing all letters. 3. Letter-carriers and receiving-offices in all large towns. 4. A method of remitting money by post-office money-orders. 5. A prompt return to the owners of all dead letters. 6. The abolition of compulsory prepayment, and a double charge on all letters not prepaid. He calls upon our merchants, and our leading men generally, to stir at once in this matter, with decision. We echo his call with all our heart; and, with him, we will not despair of the triumph of facts and common sense.

-Who Mr. R. A. WILSON may be, we do not know; but he writes a book on Mexico and her Religion, which he dedicates to the "American Party of the United States." He, himself, is a most unquestionable American nothing seems to have daunted

him in his journeys; nothing seems to fetter his freedom of speculation. He abhors the Papists, and disbelieves the chroniclers. His book is, decidedly, interesting; and, though we cannot approve of the sarcastic levity which he sometimes uses in speaking of things sacred, we have been impressed by his apparent candor and his unquestionable good feeling. Mr. Wilson gives us a great deal of valuable information respecting the manners and morals of the Mexican world, and a sort of running commentary upon Bernal Diaz and the History of the Mexican conquest. If Mr. Wilson is right (and he makes no assertions, it is fair to say, which he does not support, or try to support, by good practical evidence), Cortez was an unmitigated liar, and Bernal Diaz a priestly fabrication; the Aztec Empire a humbug, and the conquest an enterprise not comparable to the exploits of the English Buccaneers along the Spanish main. Mr. Wilson quietly ignores Mr. Prescott throughout; but, if Mr. Wilson is right, Mr. Prescott's "History" must take its place with the romances of the Grand Cyrus. Mr. Wilson also suggests a theory -which he maintains plausibly enoughthat the yellow fever in America is one of the consequences of the African slave trade. His book is altogether curious, as a capital transcript of a busy Yankee brain.

-The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races is a book of which the body has been supplied by COUNT GOBINEAU; the head by MR. H. HOTZ, translator, and the tail by DR. NOTT, of Mobile. As it happens, in such cases generally, the body is the best part of the work, and has not been greatly improved by the additions of the editors. Mr. Hotz's introductory analysis is scarcely more than a repetition of his author's conclusions, except in one case where he deviates from him to go wrong; and Professor Nott's appendix, though it furnishes some useful facts, is not remarkably important. The work itself, however, is one of high value. The translation is executed with a good deal of care and accuracy, without sacrificing freedom. But, in one place, Mr. Hotz has made a sad perversion in making a seemingly simple change. Count Gobineau divides all the raees of mankind into the masculine and feminine. or active and passive races; or those again in which the emotional or

moral nature prevails, and those in which the intellectual and practical prevails. Mr. Hotz, however, renders this division into the speculative and utilitarian races, which, besides destroying the beautiful relation suggested by his author's terms, really conceals his main principle, namely, that the best races are those fecundated by the conjunction of the two characteristics, the moral and the practical, while the lowest are those, as the Chinese and Hindoo, in which one predominates to the exclusion of the other. Under the term of M. Gobineau, all the inferior races, as they are considered, immediately address themselves to our sympathies; but, under Mr. Hotz's terms, they become repulsive. Mr. Hotz has also omitted, in several places, most interesting inquiries in which the author indulges, but which do not seem to have fallen in with his translator's prejudices. When will these official translators and editors learn, that what the reading public wants is the whole of the author's thought, and not the emasculated form of it, which may be agreeable to his accoucheurs? The notes are, mainly, of some value.

The problem of the author is, to investigate the actual diversities of the human races, with reference particularly to their influence upon the civil and political history of mankind. He manages it with learning, discretion, and candor; he means to be a Christian and philanthropist ; but some of his conclusions, it seems to us, are unwarranted by philosophy and even pernicious. What is the cause, he asks, of that overthrow or ruin of nations, which has occurred with such uniformity as to lead us to suppose that it is a law of nature? He shows that the causes usually assigned, such as fanaticism, the corruption of morals, irreligion, luxury, bad governments, are not the true causes, because nations have suffered all these and retained their vitality. But, he answers, the real cause is degeneracy, in the etymological sense of the term, or the alternation of the original blood of the nation. Or, in his own words, a nation is degenerate, when the blood of its founders no longer flows in its veins, but has been gradually deteriorated by successive foreign admixtures; so that the nation, while retaining its original name, is no longer composed of the same elements. The corruption of the

blood leads to a modification of the origi nal instincts, or modes of thinking-the new elements assert their influence, and when they have once gained perfect and entire preponderance, the degeneration is complete.

It will be seen that this view assumes a permanent and original diversity in races, or a palpable difference in the capacity and intrinsic worth of the different branches of the human family; and, accordingly, the author argues it, at great length, and with much expenditure of learning and force, though with no novel or original views. He endeavors to demonstrate, first, that these differences are not the result of political institutions, but rather that political institutions are the result of them: secondly, that they are not the result of geographical situation: and, thirdly, that Christianity cannot change their essence, though it may modify them to a small extent. In other words, the substance of his argument is, that every civilization must grow out of the primary instincts of the races, and that it cannot be implanted or impressed, or taught by other races, as we see in the cases of the Paraguayans, the South American Indians, the Cherokees, the African negroes, and others, in which attempts have been made to impose European civilization upon them.

Now, we may admit the premises of M. Gobineau-we may admit an original, natural diversity among the races of men, because all the facts of history show that, up to the ante-historic ages, that is, for four or five thousand years back, the distinctions between the races have been permanent; but it does not follow from this that the inferior races are incapable of improvement, or a high civilization. Because they have not advanced in times past, is no reason that they may not advance hereafter. A naturalist of the time of Tacitus, observing the Germanic races, might have reasoned that, inasmuch as they had been barbarians for thousands of years, they would always continue to be barbarians. Yet, we know that these very races have produced the richest and most diversified civilization that the world has yet seen. A person looking at the condition of woman, only a few centuries ago, might have argued that she could never be much more than a toy or a slave, and yet we know to what a beautiful and glorious

stature woman may attain. The development of the races is not a question of one year or of a hundred; but depends upon the plans of that divine Providence with which a thousand years are but as one day. We do not deny the possibility of a philosophy of history, or the right of science to generalize on the facts of our brief past; but we hold that all its generalizations, at this period of the world, when the most advanced races have only begun their career of real civilization, are to be accepted with caution.

The issue between those who deny the improvability of races and those who do not, is the old issue between naturalism and spiritualism, or between materialistic science and religion. Are all men susceptible of regeneration, that is, not of a literal change of nature, but of a change of impulse or motive, from selfish and natural ends to spiritual ends, or to an inward love of goodness and truth, as the principle of their lives? This is the point in dispute. Religion, by which we mean the Christian religion, says that they are; while science, founding itself upon a simple induction of facts, maintains that they are not. M. Gobineau, though professedly a Roman Catholic, seems to take the naturalistic side of the dispute; and those who would see it presented with much fairness and sagacity may read his volume with profit.

-In criticising Dr. Mahan's work on the modern spiritualism, we called for a treatment of the subject by a regular scientific man, accustomed to the laws and procedure of scientific method. This we supposed we might find on opening Dr. HARE's new work, but were sadly disappointed. Like most others who have undertaken a favorable view of the matter, he has gone off into theological speculations' instead of handling the facts in a philosophic manner. His contributions to our knowledge of the strange phenomena are interesting, as coming from a professor of the natural sciences of acknowledged position; but they do not add much to what was before known, while the supernatural communications, on which so much reliance is placed, rather confuse and perplex the question. That these occurrences could not be the result of collusion, or even of self-deception, was pretty well demonstrated before; and the expertence of Dr. Hare only confirms that conviction. That

they may come from certain weak and uneasy spirits, who have departed this life without having got fully settled in any other, was also a possible belief, which Dr. Hare strengthens; but his reasonings do not go any further. To suppose, on the ground of such "communications" as he gives, or of communications previously given, that these rappings and tippings are the signs of a new opening of revelation, of a new intercourse which is to be established between earth and heaven, would be wholly unwarranted. We can only judge of the character of a messenger by that of his message; and, by this test, we pronounce the spirits, thus far, a set of sickly, pink-eyed sentimentalists, who are incapable of giving us a single thought in advance of, what is already known. Some speak as Bacon; but their sentences have as little of the pith and matter of Bacon in them as a schoolboy's theme. Others take the name of Swedenborg, but of a Swedenborg that has lost all his fine sagacity and noble logic. Both Bacon and Swedenborg were clear-sighted, profound, and consistent thinkers; but their spiritual personators are weak and washy rhapsodists. Even the spiritual Shakespeare is, sometimes, made to write poems-but such a Shakespeare!

The mischief of these manifestations is, that almost everybody who meddles with them instantly turns theologian, and publishes a new gospel. Now, as the gospel that we have is an excellent one, and will be quite ahead of the world for some time yet, will nobody undertake a fair and candid investigation of them as a simple question of science? Dr. Hare has not succeeded, and the field is still open.

-Here, at last, we have, in MR. LEWES'S Life of Goethe, a biography of Germany's greatest son, which is not only reliable, but readable. The large book of Viehoff, and the lesser book of Schäfer, while clumsy enough to worry even a German, are not sufficiently profound to impose upon even an Englishman. Neither of these writers had access to any unpublished material; neither of them had familiarized himself with Goethe otherwise than as he appeared in print.

Mr. Lewes has been engaged upon his work for more than ten years. During this time, he has visited Germany often, has acquainted himself with the surviving

friends of Goethe, and with the places in which the great man lived; has examined files of private correspondence, and traced out the thread of many an obscure adventure.

So much for his diligence. For his capacity, it had been already attested by various literary works of no ordinary merit. Mr. Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," with all its defects, is at once one of the most entertaining and one of the most really valuable treatises upon the development of metaphysical science which we possess in the English language; his novel of "Rose, Blanche and Violet" is a romance in conception, and a keen analytical satire in execution; while his contributions, over the signature of “ Vivian," to the London Leader, have attracted the attention of the most careless members of that most careless class the readers of newspapers.

Mr. Lewes is a man of fine culture, of critical insight, of accurate perceptions, and of catholic temper. We expected from him an excellent book upon Goethe, and we are happy to say that our expectations have not been disappointed.

Mr. Lewes strikes on his title page the key-note of his work. He writes upon his shield the device of Jung Stilling: "Goethe's heart, which few knew, was as great as his intellect, which all knew." How many of our lady readers will exclaim against this motto! The wrongs of Frederica and of Lili have never been forgiven by their sex; and it is one of the pet convictions of the cultivated female world, that Goethe was a heartless flirt, a creature who "ground up his friends and his loves alike for paint." To those who cherish this conviction, we commend the brilliant and fascinating pages in which Mr. Lewes discusses the poet's relations with the various women who, at one time or another, ensnared his roving, restless heart. Perhaps they will condemn his conduct as severely as ever; but they will surely revise their judgments of his character.

When these volumes have been read carefully, charitably, thoughtfully, to the end, the prejudice must be very toughly rooted which can interfere with an acceptance of the words with which Mr. Lewes preludes his examination of the poet's life:

"One man is the carrier of one kind of