Pessimism is a pastime in which he delights to employ himself. We believe without any reserve-or any regard to the complacent glimpse of his inner life to which he admits us at the close of his personal sketch-that his Pessimism is in no respect the result of his external circumstances. We should think more of him, perhaps, if it were. He has found 'Pessimism' in the air, and he has made himself its expositor. He has drawn together the floating remains of the old metaphysical systems of Germany, especially of Hegelianism, and, combining these with the system of Schopenhauer and the generalisations of modern science, he has elaborated all of them, with a certain power of systematic thought, into his Philosophy of the Un'conscious.' Germany will never want systematisers like Hartmann, and amidst the general decay of old beliefs and the prevailing political and social disintegration of that country, the popularity of the Pessimistic philosophy is by no means so surprising a phenomenon as it may at first appear. It is only due to Hartmann also to say that, although a greatly inferior writer to Schopenhauer, he writes with a certain dash and stroke of power. He is prosy-what philosophic German is not?-and his sentences lumber along in many unnecessary clauses and strange combinations of words; but, as Mr. Sully says, he makes his philosophy concrete by the application of everyday language, the interspersion of humorous 'allusions among the highest abstractions; and this, in the view of the same critic, forms an attractive bait' for a large class of readers in Germany, which desires to add an easy acquaintance with philosophy to its other literary attain

'ments.'

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Hartmann, like Lange and others in his own country, and unhappily like not a few writers at home, has another attraction for a considerable set of readers. He is full of what cannot be called else than the slang of that Modernism which has sprung up in the wake of exhausted creeds, and a stale revival of medieval and dogmatic extravagances in the churches. He knows all about the origin of Christianity—whose kindling glow,' he graciously allows, 'still beats in this extreme corner of the old world'-and about its primitive character as a pessimistic faith. He is the apostle of all those historic and scientific generalisations which sound so grandly in our day without explaining anything. He is the heir, in short, of all the vague theories and materialistic persiflage which have set aside the results of ancient wisdom and the modesties of ancient reverence. Here is the secret of much of his popularity in Germany, and the clue to the growth of a species of dis

cipleship in this country. Even modern paganism must have its priests, and vacant altars must burn with fire of some kind. To the hosts of readers who have parted with the old Christian ideals, there is a craving for some scheme of thoughtsome ideals, however absurd and extravagant, to fill up the void. Writers like Hartmann are as missionaries to these forlorn souls. They give coherency to sceptical restlessness, and clothe nihilism in a semi-scientific and semi-poetic form which passes for something of a religion. Hartmann's Un'conscious' is really little else than a new species of 'quasi'Divine Providence' based on Nature, and working out, with the most ingenious contrivances, its own annihilation, travelling with what speed it may towards Nothing!

To anyone at all acquainted with the spiritual and social state of Germany, the absolute void of faith which the overthrow of successive systems of philosophical or religious thought has left in the national consciousness, the rise of Pessimism is intelligible, however deplorable. It is merely a deepened phase of the materialistic spirit which has spread itself everywhere in that country, in reaction from the speculative extravagances of a former generation, and the failure of ideals which have crumbled into dust. It is impossible for the German intellect to rest content with the mere empiricism of materialistic science. Philosophy without metaphysic, morality without metaphysic, may satisfy other nations, or a large class of mind in France and England; but the German cannot even have Materialism without metaphysic. And the Pessimism of Hartmann, as of Schopenhauer, is nothing else than an attempt to find a metaphysical basis for modern Materialism.

But we must ask, ere we conclude, Is this the Germany which we loved and admired forty or fifty years ago, in the days of her intellectual glory? Are these the descendants of a long line of illustrious thinkers from Luther to Kant and Schelling? Are these the countrymen of Schiller, Jean Paul, F. Schlegel, and Novalis? Did Goethe in his greatest work only foreshadow this aberration of the human intellect? With rulers whose policy is Blood and Iron,' with statesmen whose maxims of government are intolerant and reactionary, with a philosophy sunk in godless materialism, with a literature abandoned to blasphemy and licentiousness, with false conceptions of fundamental truths rampant amongst the people, neither military power nor extended education can avert the dangers which threaten the whole fabric of society. The acceptance which these wild theories of Schopenhauer and Hartmann have met with in Germany is a marvellous and appalling sign

of the times for we cannot conceive it possible that a nation should imbibe large draughts of this poison, and live. The French Revolution was preceded, in the last century, by a gorgeous vision of the perfectibility of mankind: is Germany to be convulsed by the horrid dream of its annihilation, and by repudiating all that dignifies human existence?

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There never was anything more hopeless than this struggle of the modern mind to banish the idea of an absolute or metaphysical order from human thought. Mr. Sully points out how ontology has exhausted the whole round of human principles and feelings in its successive attempts to find a Source of Being. He shows clearly enough how there is no difference in method between such attempts of speculation in our day and the old interpretation of Nature as tenanted and inspired by an integral conscious Mind.' But he misses the chief lesson of his own statement. The multiplicity of such attempts seems to him only to argue the folly of the method. Does it not more truly argue the essential reasonableness both of the method and of the old conclusion, which is acknowledged to be its highest result? He is good enough to say: 'If we must pursue this method at all, would it not be somewhat more rational to go back to the hypothesis of Theism, and provide ourselves with a Reality which is a concrete and complete conception?' He offers this suggestion, whatever its worth, to 'modern apologists of Theism." We overlook the sneer in the truth of the suggestion. Mr. Sully's study of Pessimism should have taught him more than he has learned from it. No study could well demonstrate more thoroughly the hollowness of that Sensationalism of which he is an expositor and advocate. If such a philosophy could satisfy man, Pessimism would not merely be bad metaphysics; it would be an insane and monstrous dream. But so ineradicably does the human mind cleave to some theory of Being, and not merely of Experience, that it takes up with the sad dream of Pessimism rather than grovel for ever in the conclusions of sense. We have no doubt whatever that when the Modern spirit has exhausted its searches in all directions, and seen how hollow are the successive theories which it would place in the room of the Divine Idea which has been the strength and consolation of man in all generations, it will return to this belief not in mere cynicism or apology,' but as the only true light of the world-the faith which is at once most rational in itself, and which throws the brightest illumination of reason around the mysteries of existence.

ART. X.-1. My Command in South Africa (1874-1878), comprising Experiences of Travel in the Colonies of South Africa and the Independent States. By General Sir ARTHUR THURLOW CUNYNGHAME, G.C.B., then Lieutenant-Governor and Commander of the Forces in South Africa. 8vo. London: 1879.

2. South Africa. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Two vols. 8vo. London: 1878.

3. Natal: a History and Description of the Colony. By HENRY BROOKS. Edited by Dr. R. J. MANN. 8vo.

London: 1876.

4. Compendium of the History and Geography of South Africa. By GEORGE M'CALL THEAL. Printed at the Lovedale Missionary Institution, Alice, South Africa, and republished in London. 1878. 8vo.

5. Vier Jahre in Afrika (1871-1875). WEBER. Zwei Bände. Leipzig: 1878.

Von ERNST VON

6. Further Correspondence respecting the Affairs of South Africa. Presented to Parliament in February and March 1879.

Two years ago, in January 1877, the Quarterly Review ' published a remarkable article on the affairs of South Africa, which obviously expressed the opinions of the eminent historian who had recently visited that country in a semiofficial capacity. We differed from many things which were advanced in that article. We could not accept the charges freely made against the past policy of the British Government, or the genial admiration of the writer for the patriarchal virtues of the Dutch Boers, or the confident hope that the arrival of Sir Bartle Frere in South Africa would raise order out of chaos, or peace and prosperity out of misgovernment and confusion. A reply was therefore published by this Journal in the month of April, 1877, and we may venture to say that it was written by no unworthy hand. The controversy was, in fact, maintained with signal ability on both sides, and if it failed to attract in any great measure the attention of the public, this must be attributed to the absorbing interest of the Eastern Question, and to the fact that the discussion was chiefly of a retrospective character. The people of England, ever intent on one thing at a time, failed to perceive the very serious questions which were already in full agitation in the British South African possessions. Atrocities, far more dreadful than those

of Bulgaria, were being committed by savages on our own frontier. Christian civilisation was threatened by hordes far more barbarous than Turks or Bashi-Bazouks. The scene was not a foreign country, but a part of the Queen's dominions. The victims might be our fellow-subjects or our own troops; and the cost of the sixth Kaffir war, and of the Zulu war which follows it, was pretty sure to fall in the end on the British taxpayer. To prolong the discussion of the Eastern Question or the Afghan war at the present time would be an anachronism. We are invited, and indeed compelled, to turn our attention to a subject even more directly affecting our imperial interests and our military resources; for it is obvious that the outbreak of war in South Africa tends to weaken the influence of England in other parts of the globe, and is a practical diversion in favour of our rivals or antagonists elsewhere.

In February 1878 the state of affairs in South Africa was thus briefly summarised by Sir Arthur Cunynghame :

'Affairs within the colony were now in considerable confusion. The Fingoes, our allies, were guilty of great outrages upon the unfortunate Gaikas. They went about in bands, intercepting the women and plundering them, and if they found a man in a woman's dress, they made very short work of him with assegais.

'On all sides difficulties seemed to be on the increase. A war unfinished on the Kei, a rebellion in the colony, of which the proportions could not be ascertained, but reaching to our doors, a rising in Pondoland, and insults heaped upon the Government by the paramount chief Umgaikela. An outbreak in the East Griqualand location at Kokstadt; the Transvaal continually threatened by Secocoeni; and Cetewayo, King of the Zulus, actually in arms on the border of Natal, driving away the settlers, and erecting his forts upon the Boer locations.

Alarming letters were received by the Lieutenant-Governor of the Transvaal from the extreme eastern frontier by every post, and a force was then at Utrecht protecting our borders, while the small number of Imperial troops at Pretoria were detaching men to Middleburg, and the Boers were holding seditious meetings even in the capital.

'There were risings on the borders of Griqualand West, the Baralongs and the Batlapins taking the field.' (P. 369.)

In justice to Sir Bartle Frere, it must be said that the difficulties he had to encounter upon his arrival in South Africa were of the most formidable and complicated description. They were aggravated by the fact that his own ministers were absolutely incapable of foreseeing any danger or providing against any emergency; and that he had at last to dismiss them. When the war broke out on the Kei, her Majesty's forces on the frontier consisted of the greater part of one regiment, the first battalion of the 24th, the same corps which has