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puttoch,-in each case the same spiritual need, the same expedient for satisfying it. During the quiet years of their joint household Ernest Renan and his sister followed the old paths and found in them the old joys. The life of ideas, of wholesome and fruitful effort, brought with it its own reward, and one may well linger over the picture in this age of excitement and restless

ness.

"We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both tropics and behold the poles; When we come home are to ourselves unknown,

And unacquainted still with our own souls."

From all this frivolous struggle to outshine and to enjoy, these two French people, with an instinct rare in the French character, withdrew themselves so far as they could, and it is to the simplicity of life thus founded, the nobility of temper thus fostered, that M. Renan owes more than to anything else his unique position in French thought. Many have been the critics of Christian orthodoxy, but few indeed have criticised it with the urbanity, the dignity, the reasonableness of M. Renan. And it is this urbanity, this dignity, this reasonableness which have been his strength, and may well make us indulgent towards those less admirable qualities which years of uninterrupted popular success have perhaps lately tended to develop in him.

Alas! the quiet Parisian household to which the addition of wife and child had only brought a deeper happiness, was not to be long undisturbed by loss and death. In May, 1860, Napoleon III. intrusted to M. Renan an archæological and exploring mission in the ancient Phoenicia, and he left France for Syria with his wife and sister. Madame Renan was obliged before long to return to her children, and the brother and sister were left together. Henriette had never shown herself more active or more helpful. She was capable of riding eight or ten hours a day, and

her her intimate knowledge of her brother's methods of work made her the most valuable of secretaries. The flowery Syrian spring, the wide horizons, the radiant air, enchanted her. "When I showed her for the first time from Kasyoun above Lake Huleh all the region of the Upper Jordan, and in the distance the basin of Lake Genesareth, the cradle of Christianity, she said to me that I had repaid her for everything by bringing her there. Our long wanderings in that beautiful district, always in sight of Hermon, with its deep ravines drawn in lines of snow against the azure sky, have remained in my memory like dreams of another world."

For the later summer they settled at Ghazir, a little town high up on the Lebanon range overlooking the Bay of Kesrouan. Here the Vie de Jésus was begun and carried on from day to day, under the stimulating influence of all that they had seen and were still seeing. "Henriette was my confidant day by day as the work went on, and as soon as I had finished a page she copied it by stealth. ‘I shall love this book of yours,' she would say to me, 'first because we have done it together, and next because it pleases me.' Never had her mood been so lofty. In the evening we walked together on our terrace under the starlight, and she poured out to me thoughts full of tact and profundity, some of which were like revelations to me. Her happiness was complete, and these were no doubt the sweetest moments of her life."

By the 17th of September they were at Amschit, a day's journey from Ghazir on some business connected with the mission, and Henriette had shown some signs of illness. By the 19th she was worse, and Ernest Renan himself had been attacked with similar symptoms to hers. A few more hours and both were in the full grip of Syrian fever. "Our night was terrible; but that of my poor sister seems to have been less painful than mine,

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for I remember that in the morning she had still strength to say to me, 'All your night seems to have been one groan !'" By the morning of the 25th, Henriette Renan was dead, and her brother lying unconscious beside her, knew nothing of her last hours. She died alone.- "Dieu n'a voulu pour les grands et âpres sentiers.' The mind, fortified with orthodox beliefs, will naturally ask-What was M. Renan's consolation under a blow like this? How does his philosophy fit in with grief, that mysterious universal experience against which Christianity alone has ever ventured to measure itself with confidence? Well, the consideration in which M. Renan takes comfort will not perhaps count for much with such a questioner beside the certainties of Christian expectation. Nevertheless they are real and potent. Every year such thoughts as these are telling more and more upon human life; their form grows less shadowy, their meaning deeper. "Her memory remains with me as a precious argument of those eternal truths which every virtuous life helps to demonstrate. For my self, I have never doubted the reality of the moral order; but I see now with absolute conviction that all the logic of the system of the universe would be overthrown, if such lives were only illusion and mistake." "For myself I have never doubted the reality of the moral order :" these words, which form, as it were, a conclusion to the memoir of one in whom the effort after moral perfection had gathered to itself all the passion and warmth of religious feeling, may serve as the epitome of all that is positive in M. Renan's belief. The high purpose and destiny of the human conscience, the reality of moral ends, here are the two articles of his creed. Instead of dwelling on

the tranquil optimism with which in the Souvenirs he concludes his review of what he calls "my charming promenade across reality," let us turn back, before we part with him, to earlier and graver utterances of his, more worthy of the thinker who has played so important a part in the progress of modern speculation. "There is one thought," he wrote in 1859, "which I place far above opinions and hypothesis; it is that morality is the serious and true thing par excellence, and that it suffices by itself to give life a meaning and an end. Impenetrable veils conceal from us the secret of this strange world, of which the reality at once awes and overwhelms us; philosophy and science will for ever pursue, without attaining it, the formula of this Proteus, which no reason can measure, which no language can express. But there is one indubitable basis which no scepticism can shake, and in which man will find to the end of time the one fixed point of his uncertainties: goodness is goodness, evil is evil. Science and criticism in my eyes are secondary things beside the necessity of preserving the tradition of goodness. I am more convinced than ever that the moral life corresponds to an object. If the end of life were happiness merely, there would be no reason for distinguishing the destiny of man from that of inferior beings. But it is not so; morality is not synonymous with the art of being happy. As soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and a need for man, I see no limit to the horizon which opens before me. Like the perfumes from the islands of the Erythrean sea, which floated over the surface of the waters, and lured the mariner on, this divine instinct is to me an augury of an unknown land, and a messenger of the infinite."

M. A. W.

THE FISHERIES EXHIBITION.

FISHING was a far earlier mode of supporting human life than agriculture. However far back in the stream of terrestrial events we may suppose it allowable to carry the date of man's appearance on the scene, still he must have been preceded by fish. The rivers, lakes, and seas, when he first looked upon them, must have been peopled very much as they are at this day. There was as great a variety of species, and probably much the same infinitude of individuals in some of those species. And as a savage population must be always sparse, and in any locality few in number, their supply of food from this source could only have been limited by their inability to capture it. What the wild game of the forest and of the open plains were to the inland hunting tribes, the fish of the fresh and of the salt water were to the riverine and maritime tribes. Between these early days and the first beginnings of agriculture vast periods of time must have elapsed. First because in these, and more or less in all latitudes, nature offered to man no plant that in its unimproved state was worth cultivating. The suitable form had to be evolved or created by long processes of observation and selection. This is why we know nothing of the parentage of wheat, barley, oats, rye, beans, or maize; and why the tropical breadfruit, plantain, banana, and sugar-cane have lost the power of producing seed, and so of reproducing themselves; this must have been a result of long ages of human selection. Nothing of the kind had to be done for fish. There it was as fit for human food on the first day that man stood on the river bank, or the sea shore, as it is at this day. Agriculture also required implements to clear and stir the ground, and to gather in the crops with; and these

implements we know were the result of a long series of discoveries, improvements and advances. Primæval man, therefore, as we now read his history, could not have lived by, or known anything of, agriculture. Nor could he have lived by wild fruits, for they are not continuous throughout the year. They have their season, and that a brief one. He must then have lived by hunting and fishing; and of the two fishing would be the most continuous and unfailing throughout the changing seasons; the most valuable of all qualities for those ill-supplied times. It would not be more difficult to hook, and spear, and net, and trap fish, and to gather mollusks from the rocks and sandbanks, than to trap, or pierce with arrows, wild game. Our immediate comparison, however, is with agriculture; and we may be sure that not in it were the foundations of society laid, but in hunting and fishing; and that of these two, as the great carnivors at first had possession of the forest and of the plain against intruding man, fishing was the main primæval occupation and means of subsistence.

Virgil notes that it was their wants that sharpened the wits of mankind (curis acuens mortalia corda). There is no inquiry more interesting, or indeed that we are more concerned in, than that of how the human mind has grown to be what it is in ourselves. The fishing, which was an initial, and a very long stage in man's career, has had much to do with this growth. The ingenuity in adapting means to ends, and the patience required in the fisherman, when he had to go without food if he could not catch fish, was one of the earliest, most general, and most powerful stimulants of his mental development. He had to elaborate the idea of the hook and line, and of the net, while

as yet there were no materials for them except for the hook, wood and bone, or for the net but the intestines of animals, strips of leather, and some very poor vegetable fibres. To work out the conception of these instruments with nothing to start from except a knowledge of the existence of the fish, and to put them into form with no other materials than those just mentioned, required much observation and thought. Here was the first human training that mind received. The habits of the fish had to be carefully noted, and the instruments nicely adjusted to the conditions under which they had to be used. Another mental quality this early pursuit drew out and established was that of patience, both patience in waiting, and patience under exposure to heat, and cold, and wet.

After a time a further step was taken; there arose in the mind the thought of pursuing the fish on their own element, at a distance from the bank, or the shore. This must have been first attempted on a log of wood; then on two or more logs fitted and tied together, which would be a kind of raft; then on a burnt-out, or dugout trunk, which would be a canoe. We are thinking, by the aid of what may still be observed of the ingenuity of savages, and by the light that can be derived from prehistoric archæology, of what were the attempts of the primæval savage to extend the area of his fishing, in times prior to the possession of iron tools. Some, instead of using the trunk of the tree, may, like the North American Indians, have used its bark; others, like the Irish, may have constructed their boats of hides; others of the skins of seals, like the Eskimo. Here was a very fruitful germ. It was not

commerce that set man afloat on the waters. We are looking back into times long antecedent to the first beginnings of commerce. When in a very distant future the time for commerce shall have come, the vessels, and the men to navigate them it will

require, will be ready for it. It will not have to invent the one, or to train the other. The fishing craft step by step elaborated, and the knowledge of how to manage their vessels slowly accumulated by the fishermen of the antecedent periods, will be the machinery of transport for nascent commerce. Its first essays, therefore, were made in undecked vessels, drawn up on the beach at night and in bad weather. Between them and the ocean shipping of our day the distance is great, the steps are many. The first step, however, of all was taken by the primæval fisherman. His log and his dug-out have had in an ever-ascending order a goodly progeny. The starting point was in him. He originated what those who came after him, as the conditions of their times required and permitted, only enlarged.

In looking on the early stages of the art and industry of fishing, as far as we can recover its history from what may be found in caves and shellmounds, we see everywhere all over the earth that, however much men may have differed in the conditions of their lives, and in their climatic and other surroundings, they hit upon the same contrivances for capturing their scaly prey. Everywhere there was an adaptation of the idea of the hook and line, and of the net which would allow the water to pass but not the fish. Among all tribes of men in all latitudes these were the primitive ideas and practices. Then came the contrivances for floating and moving on the water ending in the canoe. Since those days many discoveries, many advances have been made; command has been acquired over many new materials. The primitive ideas and practices, however, have not been departed from. The hook and line and the net are still the universal implements of the fisherman. This sameness, however, in the apparatus amongst all people, which in the Exhibition is almost wearisome, has its interest and instruction. It shows the identity of mind, and as mind is almost man, the

identity of the race. All, under the most diverse circumstances, have dealt with the same problem in the same fashion. The iteration in gallery after gallery of nets and hooks, and of hooks and nets, goes some way towards establishing unity as against plurality of origin in mankind.

It is also interesting, and somewhat of a corrective to modern pride, to see that the devices adopted by our earliest and rudest ancestors in this matter, have throughout all times been maintained, and are still practised by ourselves. We have not worked out anything better than their original thought. Just so has it been with many other matters of primary importance. It was our prehistoric ancestors who subdued to the use of man the ox, the sheep, the pig, the horse, the dog. We are still benefited by their thought, their inexhaustible patience, and their success. In this matter we have added nothing. So with the plants they selected and improved by cultivation. So again with the arts of spinning and weaving. In all these master arts of life we are only doing to-day what was done before even traditional history begins. Some of these processes we can carry on with greater ease and rapidity. This is all we can claim. For the idea of the thing, for thinking out how it was to be done, we are indebted to our remote unknown predecessors. We are as much indebted to them for all these essential arts as we are for our language.

It would have very much added to the interest and instructiveness of the Exhibition, if a page had been put in circulation on which were tabulated the estimated magnitude and value of the fisheries of the different countries of the world, and the number of hands they severally employ. Some particulars of this kind we will endeavour to extract from the notices contained in the Official Catalogue, adding as we go along such comments as the matter before us may seem to require. Professor Leone Levi, on page 102, tells

us that the fishermen of the United Kingdom number 120,000 men, and that the value of the fish they capture is 11,000,0007. By these 120,000 men he means those actually afloat and engaged in fishing, for he says that with their dependants, by which I suppose he means women and children, they give a a population of 400,000. To these, when we are estimating the fishing industry of the country, must be added all the people engaged in building and equipping their boats, and in providing them with salt, barrels, &c., and in transporting and distributing the fish. This may go some way towards doubling the numbers already given. But as fuel,

clothing, food, and houses are as necessary for fishermen as their boats and nets, and as the people who supply them with these necessaries are as dependent on the fish taken as the fishermen themselves, they too must be added to our total of those who are maintained by our fisheries. This will in all give about 1,000,000 souls, or three per cent. of the population of the United Kingdom. Of this calculation, however, only the foundation, or the 120,000 men afloat and employed in fishing, is actually ascertained by enumeration. This is about as many as the effectives of the British army, and nearly three times the number of the seamen in the British navy.

How Professor Leone Levi obtained the 11,000,0007. he gives as the value of the fish taken in the British and Irish fisheries, he does not tell us. When in Scotland last year I was told that the take of the previous year had been sold for 2,250,000Z. Of this 800,000l. had been taken at the fishing towns on the Aberdeenshire coast, which is a sum greater than the assessed rental of the whole county. Those of us whose memories go back to the days of old Smithfield Market will recollect that it used then to be said that more money was paid for fish at Billingsgate than for cattle and sheep at Smithfield. But this was

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