well-known facts; so, the old theory for explaining the nature of material substance or the essential constitution of bodies, with some difference in the application of it, necessitated by discoveries made in the physical sciences, but which do not affect the fundamental principle of the theory, is the one which is most consistent and satisfactory to reason, and is open to the fewest objections of all the theories of matter thus far proposed. But here this desultory article must be brought to a close, leaving further discussion of its perplexed subject among contingencies of the future. Surely the theories coming down to us from antiquity deserve a better hearing than it is now the fashion to give them; especially as, with all our positive science, we cannot claim to excel the ancients in the art of exact reasoning. A system is not therefore false, because it is an old one; nor is a theory therefore true, because it is new. We must affirm, from what we see evidently of man's action, that the union of soul and body in him is necessarily that of substantial composition, constituting man one substantial nature, and one person; and no other species of union between soul and body at all accounts for what we plainly perceive his action to be. The soul is the principle of life and action in the body; they exist as one substantial nature; so that action of the living body, or of its members, is not the action either of matter alone, or of spirit alone; but of the two as constituting one living substance. What theory yet devised explains such a nature, such a union of matter and spirit, in a manner open to so few unanswerable difficulties, as that which makes the soul of man, the "forma corporis," the active, living constituent of the human compound, by whose virtue the body itself is existent, so long as the two components remain united? THE PRESENT INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF Acta et Decreta Synodi Plenaria Episcoporum Hiberniæ Habitæ apud Maynutiam, An. MDCCCLXXV. Dublini: Typis Browne et Nolan, MDCCCLXXVII. New Ireland, by A. M. Sullivan, M.P. New York: P. F. Collier, 1878. A View of the State of Ireland. Works of Edmund Spenser. London: Henry Washburne, MDCCCLIX. WE have placed these works at the head of our article, not for the sake of reviewing them, but partly to comply with an established custom, and partly to foreshadow the ground we purpose to go over. Any attempt on our part to sit in judgment on the acts and decrees of the Plenary Synod of Maynooth, would be an unpardonable liberty. It is now rather late to criticize Mr. Sullivan's book; it would be actum agere. His book has been duly weighed and praised by some, and found fault with by others. In our humble opinion the title of the book is not just or appropriate. A section of these United States rejoice in being called New England; and there is a part of Australia mapped out as New Munster, New Leinster, New Ulster, and New Connaught. But the book is not written for any of these places; it is ostensibly addressed to England and Ireland. The acknowledged exponents of English thought do not betray that any radical change has occurred to authorize a writer to call England new; and we have not read of any new conquests of Ireland. The present generation of its people are directly descended from their predecessors; and if Ireland must be qualified at all, we should expect it to be by the adjective old or young, or both. Perhaps this is idle criticism. Booksellers are very exacting as to the title of their publications, and authors must generally succumb. Spenser lived amid the scenes he describes in his View of the State of Ireland. Nobody will dispute the ability of the author of "The Faerie Queene;" but he was a prejudiced and deeply interested witness, and we have other and contemporary evidence to rebut his testimony. We may occasionally refer to him in the course of our remarks. When Spenser wrote, America was just looming above the horizon. On old maps it is pictured as a land of savages and horrid monsters. Had Ireland then been an independent and self-governing country, she might have sent out colonies to its shores and perpetuated not only the race but the language, just as the Spanish, the French, and the English have done. But the acceptable time had arrived, and the Irish were not able to avail themselves of it. Freebooters, such as Drake and Raleigh, swept the seas. The Irish looked to Spain; it was considered by many the mother country, and it professed the same creed for the maintenance of which they were so sorely afflicted. During the calamities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Irish sought refuge in France. The exodus then really began. Under the pretence that Rome keeps no faith with heretics, which is false, King William and his councillors violated their most solemn engagements. Hæc mea sunt, veteres migrate coloni, was the order of the day. Those were the days of "the flight of the wild geese." The Irish fled in thousands to France, and they were received, not with jealousy, but as friends and equals; and the generosity of France has not been unrequited. When has France been in trouble that Ireland has not been deeply moved? But no people can establish themselves in old countries except by conquest. It is only in a new land it can be fairly done; and the Irish knew that the same power that drove them out would meet them at this side of the ocean, with bloody hands and hospitable graves." Could they have come then, we would now hear from beyond the sea less about kinships, or more, perhaps, about Irish kinship. It is since the American Revolution, that the Irish could come in considerable numbers to these shores; though there were many who took a prominent part in that struggle, and we read of no Arnold amongst them. They stood by the cradle of the Republic, and they have helped her to a vigorous manhood. The Irish now form part and parcel of the country; they contribute to its progress and share its fortunes. To parody the figure of another: whether the Irish be the feather that adorns the American eagle, is a matter of taste; but strip him of his Irish plumage, though he may not fall flat to the earth, he certainly could not soar with so bold and firm a wing. We have some misgivings whether the foregoing be germane to the matter indicated by the heading of this article. We hope it is somewhat, so we let it stand. Of late, English writers have appealed to the people of these United States, whom they are pleased to call their kin beyond the sea. They have much to say about the mother country, meaning England; and what they write about Ireland, is not with sympathetic ink; but mostly, “quicquid Græcia mendax audet in historia." These eminent worthies serve as an occasion to remind us that 1 66 2 46 This is now my property, ye old occupants must quit."-Virgil. Eclog. 9 verse, 4. we are a conglomerate people; and that there is another country, a mother country, alma virum parens, which has a numerous kin beyond the sea, who do not feel especially enthused at the recital of the glories of Old England, and who may desire to hear about old Ireland, and how she stands. And this apology brings us to the matter in hands. It is not our intention to inflict on our readers a repetition of the ofttold tale of Ireland's wrongs; but merely to offer a fair statement of the actual, industrial, and political condition of the country, and note its progress, if any there be. This is no easy task; and when it was first suggested to us, we wrote to a friend in Ireland, who is in every way capable of doing justice to the subject, and whose name were it known-and position would lend weight to his words. But his modesty prevents him from writing for American readers. Ireland lies to the northwest of Europe, and between 51° and 55° north latitude; as high up as Labrador, yet it has a better climate than Pennsylvania. This it owes to America. The great current, known as the Gulf Stream, issuing through the gates of Florida, traverses the ocean until it dashes on the Irish coast. There it gives up the heat stored within its bosom. On the wings of the winds it is diffused all over the land, clothing the valleys and mountain sides with perennial verdure; hence, she is styled the Emerald Isle, "the first flower of the earth and the first gem of the sea." All travellers testify to the fertility of the soil and genial climate. We cannot occupy space, which must be reserved for facts and figures farther on, by giving their testimony. Yet we cannot refrain from quoting very briefly from one or two. Young, who travelled through the country in 1776-78, says of Limerick and Tipperary: "It is the richest soil I ever saw." Another, who wrote in 1812, says, "Ireland may be considered as affording land of excellent quality. . . . . Some places (through Meath in particular) exhibit the richest loam I ever saw turned up with a plough." "In the elements of natural fertility," says Mr. McCombie, a Scotch M.P., "only the richer parts of England and very exceptional parts of Scotland approach it." Concerning the soil and climate this must suffice. Arthur Ireland contains over twenty millions of acres; in actual numbers, 20,819,947. Of these, in 1871, there were 10,071,285 acres in pasture, and 5,645,057 under tillage; and the returns of 1876, show that tillage is decreasing. There were 4,153,854 acres of waste, bogs, mountains, and under towns, and 627,761 acres of water. In no civilized country can water be set down as waste; it contributes to the food and convenience of man, and supplies power for manufacturing purposes. Neither should we set the bogs down as so much surface lost. The Irish peat bogs are estimated at 2,830,000 acres; of these 1,576,000 are flat, and 1,254,000 mountain bogs. Without any enormous outlay, the greater part could be reclaimed and turned into pasture. As to the mountains: there is not very much absolutely barren mountain land in Ireland. We give in proof the instance of the Monastery of Mount Melleray, near Cappaquin, in the county Waterford. About half a century ago the Trappist monks received, as a donation, a large tract of mountain land, which was looked upon as of no value, but by dint of hard and incessant toil they have rendered fertile the barren mountain slope. Where nothing but crag or heather formerly was to be seen, there are now rich meadows and abundant crops. We may safely estimate that of bogs and mountains, three million acres could be made available for pasture or tillage; and that in the whole island there is not much over three million acres of absolutely waste surface. Here then is a country with a healthy climate, whose mean temperature is 50° Fahr., and with an area of eighteen million acres fit for cultivation; the question arises, what is being done with it? We do not ask whether it increases pari passu with other European countries; but, measuring herself by herself, we do ask whether proper use is being made of her great resources. That there has been improvement we freely admit; but whether the improvement be such as we have a right to expect, is a different question. Before we venture an opinion of our own, we give the views of another. H. S. Thompson, late President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, in his work, Ireland in 1839 and 1869 says, "A journey of some thousand miles through the various counties of Ireland, has made it impossible for the writer to doubt that in the last thirty years there has been generally throughout the country, a great development of all the elements of national prosperity. Wealth has increased, the condition of the laboring classes has materially improved, and the progress of agriculture, with certain exceptions, has been highly satisfactory." So we must admit an improvement. We have open before us a huge volume, Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory, for the year 1878. It contains all manner of items regarding the British Empire, from the latest act passed for the benefit, or otherwise, of Ireland, to the last grandchild born to her Majesty, now happily reigning. It bristles with facts and figures tabulated and classified, and we have only to cull them out as they suit our purpose. We begin with the railroads. The entire length of the Irish railroads, in 1876, was 2157 miles, and the cost was £16,000 per mile, or a total cost of £34,512,000, about $169,000,000. Granting |