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But apart from the general impulse and borrowing of motif from the foreign novel, there is in this little volume considerable that is genuine and original: the author’s German patriotism, his praise of the old days in the Fatherland in the chapter entitled “Die Gaststube,” his “Trinklied eines Deutschen,” his disquisition on the position of the poet in the world (“ein eignes Kapitel”), and his adulation of Gellert at the latter’s grave. The reviewer in the Deutsche Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften chides the unnamed, youthful author for not allowing his undeniable talents to ripen to maturity, for being led on by Jacobi’s success to hasten his exercises into print. In reality Bock was no longer youthful (forty-six) when the “Tagereise” was published. The Almanach der deutschen Musen for 1771, calls the book “an unsuccessful imitation of Yorick and Jacobi,” and wishes that this “Rhapsodie von Cruditäten” might be the last one thrust on the market as a “Sentimental Journey.” The Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek comments also on the double inspiration, and the insufficiency and tiresomeness of the performance. And yet Boie says the papers praised the little book; for himself, however, he observes, he little desires to read it, and adds “What will our Yoricks yet come to? At last they will get pretty insignificant, I
Learning the author’s name, they were interested in his being a native of the town and the son of “that Fyodor Pavlovitch.” And just then it was that the author himself made his appearance among us. Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the time with a certain uneasiness.
As far back as 1896, in a lecture “On the present position of Darwinism,” in which he dealt only with Weismann, he criticised and analysed that author’s last attempt to uphold Darwinism by the construction of his theory of “germinal selection.” He concluded with the wish: “That a spirit of earnestness would once more enter into biological investigation, which would no longer attempt to find in nature just what it wanted to find, but would be ready to follow truth at all costs, and to approach the riddle of life with an open mind.”
Of the inhabitants of Lilliput; their learning, laws, and customs; the manner of educating their children. The author’s way of living in that country. His vindication of a great lady. Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a particular treatise, yet, in the mean time, I am content to gratify the curious reader with some general ideas.
Professor Bain, who gives a synopsis of it in his Deductive Logic, wholly misapprehends the author’s purpose, and is unable to appraise justly his conclusions.
But, according to the author’s own definition, when there is no praiseworthiness there is no virtue; and hence, as Adam deserved no praise on account of what he received at his creation, so such endowments partook not of the nature of true virtue. But we have a still more fundamental objection to the argument in question. It proceeds on the supposition that true virtue consists in mere feeling.
The whimsical, unconventional interposition of the reader, and the author’s reasoning with him, a
He subjects all the different theories which attempt to explain the chief vital phenomena in mechanical terms to a long and exhaustive examination. This breakdown and these admissions do not exactly tend to prejudice us in favour of the author’s own attempt to substantiate new mechanical theories.
The material here brought forward is enormous, and the author’s grasp of it very remarkable; and not the least of the merits of the book is, that the bewildering wealth and diversity of these phenomena, which are usually presented to us as isolated and uncoordinated instances, is here definitely systematised according to their characteristic peculiarities, and from the point of view of the increasing distinctness of the “autonomy” of the processes.
Pelouse on the Terrace of Chenonceau, and the head of Gounod in the Luxembourg, could not be collected into one exhibition, that lovers of art here in America might realize for themselves how this master’s works are of the class that typify a school and an epoch, and engrave their author’s name among those destined to become household words in the mouths of future generations.
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