defence were needed, it might be found in this, that he did not then know whether teleological reasonings alone were sufficient or insufficient to answer all the problems presented by the forms. of animals; and until he knew that they were insufficient, he had no need to resort to any other principle. For, in fact, morphology has been discovered because teleology has been found insufficient, and has left a residual phenomenon which morphology alone can account for. Indeed, it must be admitted that as we can perhaps never feel sure that we know exhaustively all the purposes of a creature, or all the relations of organs to their purposes, the doctrine of morphology lies open to the objection of being supported only by arguments from our ignorance; so that with the knowledge of Aristotle, it would perhaps have been rash rather than praiseworthy to have invoked into the explanation of animal forms any other principle than that of final causes. He who compares the natural history of the moderns with that of the ancients, even in its most scientific development, will of course be struck with the vast advance made in the collection and comparison of facts, the correction of errors, and the improvement of the means and method of observation. But he will be struck too with another thought, which it will be well for him also to ponder,—we mean, that almost all the great ultimate questions which presented themselves to the ancients present themselves to us also in nearly the same form, and with nearly the same difficulties attending their solution. Thus, for instance, the great question about the development of animal life and form, how far the need has gone before and caused the development, or the development has preceded and owed its origin to design,-the question, we mean, which has of late years been popularly raised by the Vestiges of Creation,— was familiar to the ancient naturalists; and there were among them, as among us, two parties, the one for and the other against what we may call the development theory. Thus Aristotle (De Partibus An. lib. i. c. 1) says that the first natural philosophers held, "that from water running into the body the stomach arose, and all the organs devoted to the reception of food; and that by the passage of the breath the nostrils were rent open." From this view he expresses his dissent, and sums up his conception of the matter in the very Aristotelian remark, "that birth is for the sake of being, and not being for the sake of birth." But the debate still survived, and reappears amongst the Roman naturalists. Lucretius has discussed the subject, in a way which might at first sight be confounded with the views of the Stagyrite, because he does not put the use before, but after, the creation of the organ; but the motive with which this is done is essentially different, because Lucretius conceives the organ to have preceded the use, not by design and with a view to the use, but by accident only, the use being a thing purely casual: "Nil ideo quoniam natum est in corpore, ut uti Lib. iv. 835-843. The modern doctrine of development tells us, as has been often said, that we are only fishes in a higher stage, and that we each have been a fish ourselves. Now Plutarch has a story which forcibly recalls this statement of the modern doctrine; for he tells us that Anaximander taught that mankind were originally born of fishes; and that when they had been nourished up and became able to help themselves,-reached a proper stage development, to use more modern language, they were then cast forth, and took to the land; and that for this reason the philosopher affirmed fishes to be the father and mother of mankind, and on that ground forbade the eating of them. We wonder whether it would be possible to discover the secret author of the Vestiges by a general invitation of all the savans of the country to a white-bait dinner. The spontaneous generation of animals is another of those ultimate questions in natural science of which we have spoken. Every schoolboy, at least of the type with which Lord Macaulay was familiar, remembers the recipe which Virgil gives in the fourth Georgic for the production of bees where the hive may have lost its usual colony, whereby a brood of insects is raised from the blood of the slaughtered heifer: "Interea teneris tepefactus in ossibus humor Georgics, iv. 308. It is impossible to read these lines and not to recall the acari which Mr. Crosse saw, or thought he saw, developing on the stone in his galvanic battery; and the question raised by the two narratives is identically the same. If one may judge from rather a brief passage in his Treatise on the Soul (lib. ii. c. 4, § 2), Aristotle did not deny the possibility of spontaneous genera *Plutarch, Conviv. Disput. lib. viii. quest. 8, § 4, edit. Wytt. tion, but seems to have confined it to the lower and rudimentary orders, to animals, in short, which he conceived as without any powers of reproduction. Many other instances might be adduced to confirm the observation that the ultimate questions of natural science remain the same; and to show that though more powerful weapons may be wielded, and more numerous troops engaged, the battle still rages round the same positions as it did in the times of Aristotle and Lucretius. This observation on the identity of the ultimate questions of natural science to Aristotle and to ourselves, is not without its bearing on any inquiry into the possible limits either of that science or of the human mind. No doubt in every case, whether it be theology or natural science, the inquiry into the limits is an a priori one, because the limitations result not from the nature of the object, but of the subject-from the smallness, not of the thing, but of the mirror; so that in the end the question, What are the limits of knowledge? resolves itself into this other, What are the limits of our powers of knowing? Nevertheless valuable suggestions towards the solution of this a priori question may be gathered from the experience of mankind wherever we find something on which the successive waves of science, the strongest efforts of man, have been beating for ages, without making the least advance, or creating the least motion, we may begin to suspect (we say not that we may conclude) that there we have something which can never be passed by the human mind with its now powers, that there we have one of those limits where God has said to the human mind, as to the 66 sea, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." ART. III.-MICHELET'S LIFE OF RICHELIEU. Richelieu et la Fronde. Par M. J. Michelet. 8vo. Paris, 1859. THIS work is the last which has appeared of M. Michelet's amusing historical notices. It includes the latter years of the reign of Louis XIII. and the beginning of that of Louis XIV., that is to say, the administrations of Richelieu and Mazarin. Those thirty years (from 1629 to 1659) are perhaps the most important in French history. In the course of them France was raised from a second-rate power nearly to her present position, her army became the first in the world, and the supremacy of her formidable rival, Austria, was destroyed, apparently for ever. In spite, however, of the glory and the promise of this period, no Englishman can rise from its records without disgust and depression. Under Richelieu it was the reign of tyranny, hatred, fear, and treachery between every class, and almost between every individual. The king, the queen, and the queenmother, deceived, distrusted, and detested each other, and they all joined in hating Richelieu. M. Michelet is not an historian; he is a describer of scenes. He instinctively seizes on all that is amusing, and his picturesque language fixes his narratives in the memory. But his series of pictures, like an historical gallery, is intelligible only to those who are familiar with the persons and the lives of the originals. We therefore think it advisable to prefix a short summary of the events which preceded those which are contained in the volume before us. Queen Marie de Medicis was, say the historians of the time, neither sufficiently grieved nor sufficiently surprised by the assassination of Henri IV. She had never deserved nor obtained his affection, and she now looked forward to a long period of power and of freedom; for the little Louis XIII. was only ten years old. Her expectations were deceived. Her weak and vicious government revived the pretensions of the upper classes, restrained for a time by Henri IV. and his minister Sully. The money which Sully had accumulated was squandered on the princes and nobles, in the vain endeavour to suppress insurrection; and seven years had not elapsed before Louis XIII., at the instigation of De Luynes, exiled his mother, and caused her favourite minister Concini, Maréchal d'Ancre, to be murdered within the walls of her palace. She was followed into exile by the comptroller of her household, Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu. Born in 1585, he was at this time thirty-two years of age. The church was not his choice. He had already embraced a military career, when in 1605 his elder brother, the Bishop of Luçon, retired into a convent. The family could not afford to lose a bishopric, and Armand was compelled to abandon the sword for the crosier. He spent two years in study at the Sorbonne, and was consecrated to the see of Luçon before his twenty-second year. Early in life he showed consciousness of his powers, and eagerness to exercise them. He first attracted attention by his eloquence in the States-General of 1614. His speech in favour of the royal authority and of the regency recommended him to the notice of Concini, who introduced him to the queenmother. The person and manners of the young prelate gained her heart, and she appointed him high almoner to Anne of Austria, the bride of Louis XIII., and, in 1616, secretary of state. During his brief period of office he conciliated all parties. After the death of Concini the king intimated to him that he did not count him among the evil counsellors of the late minister. The new favourite de Luynes held a similar language. But the time was past for Richelieu to occupy a subordinate position, and he resolved to withdraw till he could be a master. The two following years he spent in retirement at Avignon; meditating, we may believe, the gigantic projects which he lived just long enough to accomplish. In 1619 he was recalled to effect a reconciliation between the king and his mother; and, to reward his services, Marie de Medicis asked for him the cardinal's hat. He obtained it in 1622. For a few years Richelieu was devoted to his benefactress, and we trace his influence in the unusual wisdom of her advice to the young king. The council, however, was still governed by Luynes, and after his death by Brulart de Puisieux. He was turned out in 1624 by La Vieuville, who, to win the favour of the queen-mother, introduced Richelieu into the council, after a feigned resistance on the part of the cardinal, and a real reluctance on that of the king. In six months La Vieuville was in prison, and Richelieu reigned supreme. A total change took place in his demeanour. The subtle and insinuating courtier became the uncompromising statesman, scorning remonstrance and punishing opposition. Louis XIII. was captivated by the prospect of glory opened before him. He had at last found a minister strong enough to hold the sceptre which fatigued his feeble hand. Protestant alliances were formed. The marriage of Madame Henriette-Marie and Charles I. was concluded, and an army sent into the Valtelines to check the pope and the House of Austria. The revolt of the Huguenots in 1625 interrupted Richelieu's foreign policy. A long civil war ensued, which terminated in the celebrated siege of La Rochelle. The capture of this, their principal stronghold, in 1628, for ever crushed the Protestants as a political party. The hands of Richelieu were now free to pursue the war in Italy; and amidst the frost and snow of the early spring of 1629, he and the king crossed the Alps at the head of their army, took Susa, imposed a French alliance on the Duke of Savoy, and drove the Spaniards out of Casale. |
