BOOKS.

1TLTLMATE CPTILIZATION.*

" ULTIMATE Civilization" is the title of one of seven essays, five of which have never before appeared in print, constituting a vo- lume by a veteran author, Who has exhibited, in a succession of

thoughtful works, the various superiorities and deficiencies of his method, his logic' and his philosophy. Unable ourselves to assi-

milate much, of his curious and ingenious speculation finding his reasoning unconvincing, and his metaphysics unsatisfactory, we can still discern the thinking man behind the book. With some of his views, moreover, we feel a partial or entire sympathy, and, therefore, the more willingly concede to Mr. Isaac Taylor the title to take or retain a seat in the many-voiced parliament of English opinion.

In the present volume the essay which gives its name to the book is the longest, and, we presume, would be considered the

most important. It is to this essay, therefore, that we shall now

direct our attention. Civilization, according to our author, is a term of the body. social, not of the individual man. Ultimate

civilization is a phrase which is by no means intended to preclude the further advance of the personal unit, but is employed to de- note the coexistence of the several constituents of the social mass in a "state of stable equilibrium, or of undisturbed and unrestricted and productive interaction." So understood, civilization does not consist in any actual or possible improvement of the mechanical arts. They are but means, tools and opportunities, aids to civi-

lization but not civilization itself. The progress of the social

mass, unlike that of the individual, which is quite indeterminable, will always Italic its "limit from that which is now the mean level of mind within it." Comparing the social system to a living body, or animal organization Mr. Taylor contends that an ad- vanced civilization implies heath throughout the body, "diffused tranquil functional life." All undefinable advancements of man in society, he rejects as harmless dreams ; requiring that the germ or rudiment of every future amelioration which we announce should have an actual or closely prospective existence. Mr. Taylor selects an insulated community, one people as an illustrative type of animal organization, for the clearer and better treatment of his subject, pretermitting all inquiry into the phe- nomena of cosmopolitan civilization. Having thus secured an "enclosed field," he proceeds to indicate some of the "inci- dental" agencies by which civilization is promoted, such as happy discoveries in the arts, or inconsiderable changes in the domestic or the trading usages of a people. Railway travelling, steam navigation, the electric telegraph, are instances of the aristocratic class of improvements; the adoption of a cursive hand, the intro- duction of cheap scribbling paper, the use of lucifer matches, are examples of the plebeian order. Progress through legislative action is next discussed; the no- tion of rapid advance through organic evolutions dependent on governmental agency being unceremoni9usly shunted, and the quiet social reforms brought prominently forward as far more effective than those which have the enthusiastic approval of po- litical agitators. We acknowledge that there is a great deal of truth in this view. The silent reforms are often more valu- able than the noisy ones ; many of Nature's mightiest operations are executed with a grand reticence ; but those in which her power is evidenced, through the violent agencies of storm, earth- quake and volcano, have often been attended by conspicuous and

beneficial results. Thus' Mr. Taylor recognizes the value of such measures as Parliamentary Reform, Catholic Emancipation, and the abolition of the Corn-laws, while apparently attributing a still higher importance to the Penny Postage.

' Of the higher civilization, which, says our author, is not only desired but is in near prospect, one condition is the presence in the social body of the greatest number and the greatest variety of constituents ; of separate elements that, while combining their forces for the purposes of common life, tend. "more to conserve their separate existence than to lose and merge it." Among these in our typical social organism, the British people are in-

cluded aboriginal diversities of race exemplified in the triple

nationality of England, Scotland, and Ireland, each of which, while provoking the civilization of the entire people, maintains its own decisive characteristics. Scotland with its puritanism, and Ireland with its Romanism act favourably upon England,

with its state ecclesiasticism. Religious differences' indeed, are not merely elements but energies within the social mass; they

are "prominent among the forces that are carrying us forward toward. a higher civilization." We -are glad to find so cardinal a truth as that implied in the admitted necessity of the absolutely

unrestricted development of religious differences, unreservedly as- serted by so esteemed a writer as Mr. Taylor. He even goes further than this, insisting that their fixed conservation is "an indispensable condition of social advancement, and of the progress of the people towards a state of equipoise, without stagnation." We must not, however, forget that a true tempering of these an- tagonistic energies is a concomitant prerequisite with our author, and that he finds this prerequisite in the prevalence of a "homely right feeling," acting as a check ; and in a pervading catholicity of sentiment, much promoted, he thinks, by those evangelical combinations that call forth large sympathies, philanthropies, • Ultimate Civilization, and other Essays. By Isaac Taylor. Published by Bell and Daldy.

melting compassions, &c. which commodities we regard with a somewhat sceptical eye. ?Are they real gold, or only pinchbeck ? Respecting the "obsolete constitutional formula king lords, and commons," our author substitutes the more real and distinct conditions under which aristocratic life, mercantile life, trading life, industrial life, rear and train the individual man. These various classes reciprocally influence and improve each other. "The industrial class, especially, has so been brought into cor- respondence with the aristocratic, as that there has been commu- nicated to both, in different modes, a sort of galvanic impulse, which is greatly beneficiakto both, and not less so to the loftier, than to the lower of the two."

Passing from the regular army to the inorganic multitude, "the camp-followers of social order," Mr. Taylor regards the helpless woman and her luckless infants, the maimed, the sick, the imbe- cile, and theindigent, as our clients, recognized as such by the impulses iale odnr humane consciousness. For the effectiveness of any remedial means, we are instructed to look to its diffusion in the classes next above the lowest, and to cherish and enhance the sensitiveness of that class. For with it, if anywhere, will be found "a feeling concerning the dues of humanity,"—that mini- mum of good, the absence of which in the lot of our fellows ap- peals to our constitutional power of sympathy—" which will operate with more or less force, as a regulative cause, deter- mining the actual conditions of human life, down to its lowest ranges.

To right the labour market, our essayist proposes systematic emi- gration; the opening-up of new occupations adapted to woman, and which shall leave her woman still ; the natural and not the legislative subversion of all immoral and underpaying trades, through the wisely-directed exertions of instructed philan- thropists; and such an extension and readjustment of the prin- ciple of the division of labour, in its application to the industrial and decorative arts, as shouldincrease the demand for women and children so that, "among many other things which must ensue, the making of a shirt must thenceforward be paid for at a rate which would not inflict a slow death by torture upon the needle- woman!"

In treating of the jurisdiction of public opinion, our author briefly notices the action of its chief organ, the press, on the mind of the industrial class, and the reaction of that mind on the press, finally issuing, by "a process of unauthentic arbitration, in a substantial agreement. A marked indication of the advance of a people toward a higher civilization would, he observes, be afforded, wherever the periodic press undertook to deal with projects or suggestions, professedly calculated to aid the industrial and the small trading members of the community in their efforts to take care of themselves.

The efficacy of Fine Art exhibitions, in "culturing the taste" of the labouring classes' is, Mr. Taylor seems to think, over esti- mated. On the other hand, he lays great stress on the benefit re- sulting from "intermixtures of ranks." These juxtapositions

are particularly valuable, in his judgment, to many of the work- ..

mg order. They begin with emulation, even personation if you

will, in attire gesture, utterance. This imitation he allows, is absurd, but the absurdity does not go deep ; the affectation which accompanies it, is an evil which, in the broad view of a people's welfare, is of no account. The imitation is an incitement to am- bition, industry, enterprise, and renewed efforts to command mere decorations, while "the product of such enhanced. endeavours will greatly overbalance what may have been lavished upon vanity."

This consideration may reconcile us to the simions imitation of the more affluent and leisurely classes, by their poor and hard- working dependents, in costume. For a labourer's wife or • daughter, to wear artificial flowers, factitious feathers, or that still more unnatural crinoline, is a discord, but a discord that suggests a harmony. They are learning taste, in however rough a way ; commencing with false ornamentation, they will end with a recognition of the real and genuinely beautiful. Phillis, who is now preposterously bedizened, and whose hands are certainly not over clean, though covered with delicate white kid, will one day see, without reading Horace, how much better she looks, when she is "simplex munditiis," and will find, without consulting Milton, how much more savoury are her "savoury messes," when she draws off her dainty French gloves, and appears, at last, as the "neat-handed Phillis."

Under the head of Popular Education, Mr. Taylor wisely de- mands a rudimental instruction for children whose schooling must reach its conclusion in their twelfth or thirteenth year. Wisely too, does he deprecate that pedantic misapplication of learning, which, overlooking the claims of common sense, enforces a barren and impossible erudition ; or, to transfer the exaggerative illus- tration of the essayist :—a edam of good boys and girls, who are presently to hie themselves away to attics or cellars, and to take their rasher and potato upon the door-step, are questioned by a bright-eyed, pale-faced, young teacher, after this fashion : "What in your view, my dear children, is the characteristic difference as to style between Chaucer and Spenser ; or, tell me what were the services rendered to our modern literature by Petrarch ? "

The doctrine of individuality is preached no less strenuously by Mr. Taylor than by the author of the Essay on Liberty. The only sure hope of an advancing social condition, is he asserts, that which arises from the free development of individual minds. They are the immediate instruments in bringing about the intellectual and Moral progession of the nation ; the illustrious individual

minds, constituting the moving power, the non-illustrious ones being the fulcrum of the leverage ; while the mass of men, to em- ploy another metaphor, merely exert a reverberative influence upon its centres.

These are some of our author's leading positions, we believe, the leading ones. With these philosophical views he unites, as the crowning truth of all, that embodied in the Christian Faith, with- out whose perpetuity and free expansion, the social body, must he says, become putrescent." Christianity secured; human rights secured ; political rights secured ; the ultimate civilization, including, if we do not err, "the reign of intellect, the reign of .esthetics, and the reign of courtesies,, will be also virtually secured.

To complete our presentment of Mr. Taylor's theory, we must add the three religious postulates. 1. That there is a providential government of human affairs; • 2nd. That the divine beneficent intention is and will be carried forward by the instrumentality of personally gifted and specially missioned men : and, 3. That the British people have been thus gifted and trained, "for the acconi- plishment of this Divine intention toward the human family—to tame, to teach, to guide, and to rule, with truth and goodness all that are afar off.'

Leaving our readers to determine how far Mr. Taylor is actuated by that national self-idolatry, which has inclined more than one people to arrogate to itself the dangerous prerogative of exclusive empire, we shall satisfy ourselves with recalling the less dazzling but less perilous prospect of the majestic privileges which England possesses, and the correspondingly august du- ties which that possession imposes.

We shall only subjoin that the remaining essays in this little volume are entitled, "Mind in Form "; "Modern Advancements and Lay Inventors "; "Lay Theologians "; "Epidemic Whims "- "Heads in Groups "; and the "Ornamentation of Nature." In this enumeration, the first essay aims to show that mind is structural; and that in the resulting structure we read the intention, the quality, and sometimes the quantity of mind, residing in the form ; the second records instances of undisciplined or lay in- vasions in the walks of purely scientific discovery, such men as Franklin, Arkwright, Brindley, and Dalton, representing the welcome invaders ; the third establishes the fact of an analogous intrusion within the sacred precincts of theology ; Strauss and Comte, with "other like-minded" thinkers being claimed as lay theologians, on the ground that they have displayed great ability in the reduction of the historical or philosophical anti-religious ar- gument, "to its ultimate condition of a self-confuted absurdity "; the fourth essay distinguishes whims from crotchets, hobbies, fashions, and quackeries, dealing with such as "have &tendency to become epidemic," and are "often the forerunners of beneficial reforms," as the homceopathio and total abstinence movements; the fifth essay proposes to group together notable minds "in ac- cordance with their intrinsic qualities," as Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, Hobbes, &c. • and the sixth treats of Beauty in Nature, regarding ornamentation as a representative of a third attribute of the Creative Will ; Goodness and Wisdom being the two residuary attributes.