Spezia a free port to the goods of all nations; to attract thither the immense commerce of France, England, and America, and to deluge Austrian Italy with a contraband trade, which, were she to convert her entire Lombard army into customs officers, would still defy her to oppose. To this object the geographical situation of Spezia offers the most remarkable facilities. With a bay capable of holding the assembled navies of the world, sheltered and protected on every side, Spezia lies in the extreme eastern frontier of the kingdom, so as to admit of its being easily partitioned off from the rest of the state. A mountainous peninsula, forming the south-eastern shore of the gulf, separates it from the Modenese territory. This tract is almost uninhabited, and except the small town of Lerici, a few inconsiderable villages are the only unoccupied spots. Over this mountain frontier the footsteps of the smuggler would soon wear a thousand tracks. The country beyond, broken, irregular, and well wooded, presents every facilityof concealment. Even now its population are a race of "contrabandieri," who for the small profits of a differential duty, daily peril their lives in this pursuit. Let these profits, however, be augmented ten, fifty, or a hundred fold; let the supply be inexhaustable; and it may be imagined to what an extent and with what an organization will be carried a system by which great wealth will be rapidly accumulated. There is scarcely an imported article for which the consumer of Modena is not taxed forty or fifty per cent. upon its value. Manufactured goods are almost excluded from consumption by the exorbitant rate of duty. Fancy then the avidity with which the products of France and England would be sought by those denied the very

com

monest of those articles so familiar to our own populations. By the valley of Pontremoli, Parma is also reached; and here again stretches a tract of country where no amount of vigilance, nor scarcely any number of people, could successfully oppose the arts of the smuggler.

When we recal to mind the dismay occasioned to the Austrian government when a small and insignificant league at Milan was formed to denounce the use of tobacco, and smo

king was proclaimed to be a crime against patriotism; when we remember the terror with which this new sect was regarded, the means taken to suppress it, the severities employed towards any detected as belonging to it, we can form some vague and indistinct notion of the far greater fear which such a scheme as we here speak of would excite.

Within the last few weeks the people of Ancona have declared that they will abstain from spirituous liquors, as a means of injury to the national revenue; and Austria, alarmed by a system so easily followed and so quickly learned, has lent all the aid of her force to punish these conspirators. Such facts will not fail to show us with what eyes she would regard this infinitely greater peril.

If we have put forward, in the first place, the consequences of a large contraband trade, ruinous to its revenue, and scarcely less perilous in the lawless habits it engenders, before entering upon the graver consequences of the plan, it is because we desire to trace, so far as we can, the results that would ensue in the same order that they would themselves observe. The immediate consequence of establishing Spezia as a free port would then be what we have mentioned-a system of contraband, spreading from the Appenines to the sea, engaging the entire population of the Lunigiana, and enlisting every village from Pontremoli to Cuxara. Through every valley and gorge of the Appenines the manufactures of France and England would find their way. While the enterprise of the smuggler was amassing wealth for himself, the lesson imparted to the people would be to reflect upon those other nations where the blessings of free trade prevailed, and where even poverty was not denied its comforts. What a contrast would it present to the minds of these long enslaved people, the condition of those to whom all these luxuries were as mere daily wants, with their own, excluded from even the very commonest products of industry? With what feelings would they regard the government which, for the object of their own enslavement, oppressed them with protective duties, while all around and about them lived others, of their own blood and tongue, free to enjoy such gifts?

How would they feel towards the land from which the benefits flowed? These are the more remote but far graver consequences that would ensue.

While this great commercial campaign was thus waged, Spezia itself would become a place of note and importance. The great naval depot of the kingdom, strengthened and fortified, would become a great military position, equally available for attack or defence. The increased trade thus fostered would be gradually elevating her to that position which happily it may be yet her privilege to hold the great commercial centre of a country of which Modena and the Lunigiano should form part-the Genoa of Eastern Sardinia.

Could Austria maintain her position against this assault? by what organization could she combat its operations? how oppose the spread of those opinions, which, more fatal than any other contraband, would soon over-run the whole Lombard kingdom?

It is not necessary to advert to that closer alliance which Sardinia would thus contract with England, nor to the strong ties by which this nation would thus be attached to our own. In the fortunes and welfare of Piedmont our interest would soon rise above the feelings of mere sympathy and good will. A vast opening to our commerce would speedily estab lish relations with the two countries which would unite us to her fortunes in weal or woe; and this fact alone would have its significance for Austria. Look on the map of Northern Italy and South Germany, and ask how long would it take ere Spezia, thus privileged, should darken the fortunes of Trieste, and the trade of the gulf obliterate the commerce of the Adriatic. We do not attempt to assert that this policy has not its own heavy cost, or that in adopting it, Sardinia engages upon a path without its share of sacrifices. The interests of Genoa would of course suffer, though not so largely as might at first be supposed. A large inroad would of course be made upon the financial receipts of the realm, and a deficit, which might be calculated at thirty millions of francs, at once incurred. The cause of protection, which to a considerable extent is maintained in Piedmont, would be also assailed in its most vital part.

These are all grave considerations, but they must be weighed against the benefits which would accrue from the plan; which, if successful, accomplishes a change in Northern Italy far greater than the most prosperous campaign of a victorious army could effect. Let Austria be made to feel her resources assailed, and her large revenue impaired. Let the power she now wields over contiguous states be weakened, as it will be by her inability to protect them. Let the cost of maintaining her Lombard possessions reach a point approaching the benefit she derives from them; and add to these considerations the risk of the opinions, thus broad-cast, spreading through the Italian Tyrol, over the Alps, and into Southern Germany; and we may confidently ask how long will she desire to possess an Italian province ?

In the year 1848 she was willing, after a brief and far from decisive campaign, to resign the whole of the Milanais to Charles Albert. It was less the disasters of her armies that induced her to propose this immense concession, than the dread of "the worse thing" that she anticipated was to follow. Such has ever been Austrian policy. The artificial system on which her empire is based can resist no shock-can weather no hurricane. An incongruous association of states, held together by cleverly managed rivalries and intestine jealousies rather than by the ties of common kindred and family, admits of no appeal to its patriotism. The impulses of self interest will predominate over all other, as they have been shewn to do in that very portion of her empire where personal devotion to the House of Hapsburg was once a religion. In the Tyrol, where loyalty some fifteen or twenty years ago was the impulse of every breast, it has been almost effaced. A series of cruel enactments, oppressive to their interests, a heavy tax on the export of their wines, the one solitary article of foreign consumption, has sapped the devotion of those who were wont to place their faith in the paternal government.

We repeat once more the main facts; that Lombardy can be rendered too costly to keep; that the measures of defence can be pushed to that amount of costliness, that, independ

ently of the grave thought of retaining in close connexion a rebellious province and a. beggared treasury, will come the stern consideration that the struggle offers not one solitary advantage, and that it is a mere question of years, if not of months, how long the black and yellow banner should wave over the towers of Mantua. To accomplish this by force of arms would require a European war. Austria cannot be driven out of Lombardy by the unsupported strength of Sardinia. The aid Piedmont derived from Italy in the war of 1848 would no longer be present. Tuscany, the Roman states, and Naples have returned to all, some to more than all, their ancient traditions of oppression. Sardinia would be alone in the struggle, as regards the rest of the Peninsula.

To invite the alliance of France and England might not prove successful. It is indeed more than likely that these nations would not lend themselves to any aggressive policy, and that the very utmost of their efforts would be to protect Sardinia, if assailed. But supposing it otherwise; assuming that the western powers concurred in such a line; what proportions would not the war immediately assume ! Russia and Prussia would soon find themselves in the ranks; and not Italy alone, but the banks of the Rhine and the Danube would re-echo the cannon of the engaged hosts.

It can no more be our policy than that of France to promote such a struggle. A great war of nationalities, and such it would be, would be the greatest disaster could befal Europe. All the energies of modern statesmanship, all the triumphs of modern science and skill have been directed to the object of obliterating the tracts which have divided nation from nation. More widely disseminated intelligence, more extended commerce, the railroad and the telegraph have already accomplished much; nearer intercourse between the different families of European race has shown how few were the real grudges, how unfounded the greater number of the prejudices which the crafty policy of

the rulers had so long fostered between them. Let but a few more years of peace prevail, and the difficulty of a European war will be much increased. Let, however, the spark of discord only evoke the dread question of nationalities now, and the wisest and most far seeing politician will be lost in his speculations as to what may ensue.

If it be therefore of greatest moment to us that the Italian difficulty be settled without a war, it is not less imminent that the question should have a speedy solution. The instinct that would deter a man to build his house on the slopes of Etna or Vesuvius would alike prevent the world of Europe from proceeding in their accustomed course in the present condition of the Peninsula. The light cloud over the mountain top, the muttered thunder within have told us that the terrible hour is approaching. As easily might we attempt to arrest the upthrown lava of the eruption, as the force of that dread contest which will flow over the high Alps, and involve all Europe in its ravages. Let us only defer the day, and while we wear out the hopes of that party whose moderation is now our stronghold, we shall also strengthen that dangerous sect who await the hour of impatient anger and uncalculating passion, to place themselves at the head of the people.

While France and England stand forward, while England alone stands forward, to aid the cause of good government in Italy, the efforts of Mazzini are powerless. Well is he aware of this fact, and every device of his ingenuity has been to thwart the influence which England is justly obtaining over the constitutional party in Italy. We can do now, therefore, what we may not be able to do hereafter. Meanwhile it is for Sardinia to give the initiative. If the counsels we have here tendered, if our views be such as to offer a well grounded hope of success, we shall be prouder in this our humble effort, than had we been selected by a great king or kaiser to aid in the oppression of his subjects and the subjugation of his people.

Ir might have been expected that a scientific art like Logic would by this time have been a thing so well settled and defined, as to take its place in the stationary parts of knowledge. Its matter lies wholly within the compass of every day's experience; and its form it was the chosen labour, for many ages, of some of the acutest minds the world has ever seen, to elaborate into complete perfection. Such a department of science and art seemed to hold out little promise of fresh discoveries; and in fact, we believe that the minds of thinking men had, until very lately, settled themselves into the persuasion that little more remained to be done than to use the excellent instruments which former manufacturers had provided for us; that the stock already in hand was, if faulty in any respect, only faulty in excess; and that while it was probable that we might do well without some of the curious old appliances of Burgersdick and Smiglecius, there could be no necessity for framing any new ones. The disgust created by the scholastic abuse of syllogising had disappeared as the nuisance itself abated; the alarm raised about the very foundations of the art by the Scottish metaphysicians was perceived to be a groundless panic, originating in the ignorance of the alarmists; and within the clear and distinctly marked boundaries which Archbishop Whately traced for it, the logic of Aristotle had as well recognized a province as grammar or geography.

But, within the last few years, the repose of the schools has again been broken-not by the enemies merely, but by the friends of syllogism; and important discoveries have been announced of a terra incognita which lay concealed in this often-traversed region. This announcement, we believe, came upon most hearers-as it certainly did upon us--with much the same startling effect as if they

had heard of a new California or El Dorado discovered in the valley of

the Poddle. But the character of discoverers has been assumed in this instance by persons of such distinc tion in the literary world, as to place them beyond the reach of mere ridi cule, and secure attention to the claims they have put forward. We refer especially to Mr. Mill, the late Sir William Hamilton, and Profes sors De Morgan and Boole. Such innovators as these were not persons to be treated with mere contemptu ous neglect, and therefore we are glad to find that so able a champion as Mr. Kidd has come forward with a regular defence of the old orthodox Aristotelic faith, as it has come down to us through the tradition of our dialectical ancestors.

Logic may be regarded as both an art and a science; and, in point of fact, and notwithstanding some angry verbal disputes, has always been so regarded. Those stern combatants in a controversy now almost forgotten, who contended most earnestly that it should be ranked among the arts, maintained that conclusion upon the principle that things should be denominated a majori parte: and this point once admitted the case was clear in their favour, since the larger part of the matter of logic is manifestly technical. Their antagonists on the other hand, who were for calling it a science, rested their case upon another priciple that things should be denominated a nobiliori parte The quarrel was a very pretty one for a scholastic tournament, but not sufficiently important for our utilitarian tastes. Those who preferred to style it a science confessed that it contained an art; and those who called it an art, allowed it to contain a science. The dispute was only about the propriety of a name.

Logic, then, may be safely regard ed as both a science and an art; and amongst the innovations to which we have referred, some involve changes principally in the technical, and some in the scientific part of it. Those who, with Hamilton and De Morgan,

admit, more or less, the substantial correctness of the common scientific theory of logic, and only seek to perfect its analysis, and to express its formulas with greater generality and precision, introduce extensive alterations into its rules: while Mill, who sets aside the vulgar notion of its basis altogether, leaves the fabric of the art of logic precisely as he found it, and speaks with a lofty, and not wholly undeserved, contempt of the labours of the mathematico-logicians.

Indeed we are ourselves disposed to regard the achievements of Mr. De Morgan and Dr. Boole, as much more important in the way of shewing the powers of symbolical algebra by its application to a new subject, than in respect of any light they throw upon the science, or any accession they contribute to the art of logic.

The analogy between logic and arithmetic had been strongly felt in former times, and the ambiguity of the Greek term λóyos is itself a wit

ness of it. But Hobbes pressed the resemblance to absolute identity. "To compute," says he, "is either to collect the sum of many things taken together, or to know what remains when one thing is taken out of another. Ratiocination, therefore, is the same both in addition and subtraction; and if any man will add multiplication and division, I will not be against it, seeing multiplication is nothing but the addition of equals one to another, and division nothing but the subtraction of equals one from another We must not therefore think that computation, i. e. ratiocination, has place only in numbers, as if man were distinguished from other living creatures (which is said to have been the opinion of Pythagoras) by nothing but the faculty of numbering; for magnitude, body, time, degrees of quality, action, conception, speech, and names (in which all the kinds of philosophy consist) are capable of addition and subtraction. Now such things as we add or subtract, i. e., what we put into an account, we are said to consider, in Greek λoyíÇeσda, in which

*

language also συλλογίζεσθαι signifies to compute, reason or reckon."*

But modern symbolism does not confine itself to addition and subtraction. The symbols of mathematical reasoning were indeed until recently considered as indissolubly connected with quantity in some form or other; and to this exclusive meaning, which they were supposed to have, was referred the power of development of which they are possessed. Enquiries more extensive and more exact, however, have dispelled these prejudices, and shewn that their surprising capability of endless transformation and expansion is due (not to any necessary connexion between them and the magnitudes they are employed to express, but) to the independent operation of a few primary laws assumed at the outset for the purpose of regulating their use. Thus we are led to see that the quantities which had been regarded as the meaning of the symbols, were only an interpretation of them. Symbols accordingly have been latterly employed by mathematicians, under forms such as that the idea of quantity cannot enter; while others again have occupied themselves in extending the interpretation of the symbols of ordinary algebra. In both departments considerable progress has been made, and much light thrown on some obscure regions of analysis. And although the extravagant hopes of some enthusiastic admirers have been disappointed, yet this is a branch of enquiry from which no contemptible store of knowledge has been gathered, and more may not unreasonably be expected.

In the way of proving or trying the powers of this new and curious engine, we do not object to the application of it to logical formulas. It is a highly interesting sight to the mathematician to see "Victorious Analysis" thus exercising its forces upon a new region of human thought; and perhaps from this development of those forces he may learn to wield them hereafter with greater facility and advantage in a field where more can be effected by them. But we

future generations should put all See the whole of this curious pastowards the end.