ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNIVERSAL PROGRESS. A Series of Discussions. BY HERBERT SPENCER, author of 'First Principles,' etc. etc. etc. New-York: D. Appleton & Co.

1864.

'DISCUSSIONS,' in the classical, radical idea of the word, is a very appropriate denomination of the chapters of 'Universal Progress' striking asunder. It is fitting, because the author dissects all things, and finds the law of development in the ever and universally becoming of the heterogeneous out of the homogeneous, or reversed, the transition, or evolution rather, of homogeneity into heterogeneity. It is also fitting, because Mr. Spencer has unwonted analytic power, whilst in synthetic he is quite equal. A profound thinker and rare observer, he accumulates facts, bidding science and history lay them at his feet, or at the beck of his brain, and then selects, arranges, and makes them utter his own thoughts, confirm his own high general ization.

He is lucid, consecutive, forceful, and it does one good, intellectually at least, to read him. No one pretending to philosophy can afford not to read him; no one can fail to be profited by reading him. Merely as a treasury of facts, and of the relativity of knowledges, the book were valuable; and as a dissertation and a genuine philosophy of progress, it is invaluable.

Having said thus much, it is not to be presumed that we assent to all his reasonings, or to his law of progress as definitely established on a scientific or unanswerable basis.

The author has taken pains, with some success, to disabuse himself of the charge of Positivism, so popular now with scientificists. In so far as that is supposed to be the equivalent of Comteism, he has exonerated himself quite; yet the tendency of his reasonings, in

some of his chapters, is towards the general notion of Positivism.

Although he does not discard the idea of a personal God, the Creator, and perhaps, though undesignedly, lays the foundation for a stronger positive theological structure, yet, in carrying out his theory of evolution, he uses language adapted to throw grave doubt on the inspiration of the Bible and the wonted interpretation of the Genesis, or the Cosmogony. 'Must we receive,' he asks, 'the old Hebrew idea that God takes clay and moulds a new creature?' the interrogation here being figurative and equivalent to a strong negation.

In chapter ninth, from which the quotation is made, the author represents the idea of 'special creations,' as of animals and man, as 'having no fact to support it,' and as not at all conceivable; the notion of man's evolution, in process of time, from the simplest monad, is only ludicrous to the uneducated, and the opposite belief inexcusable in the physiologist or the man of science; for if a single cell,' from the semen, 'may become a man in twenty years, a cell may, in the course of millions of years, give origin to the human race. The two processes are generically the same.' It would, moreover, be 'next to an insult to ask a leading geologist or physiologist whether he believes in the Mosaic account of the Creation.'

เ

In all this reasoning there is the rejection of the fact of the revelation of the Mosaic account of creation, because it is said to have no fact to support it, and there is, certainly, the doctrine of evolution, even of man, out of original cells, without any creative power beyond that of making these original cells or monads, if even that, by a personal power. It is clearly intimated, also, that this man-monad probably required millions of years to develop itself, under

trations of Scripture' and 'A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles.' The present volume is quite in keeping with his theological professorship, and a Christian, patriotic testimony to the life of faith and prayer of many a brave soldier, and to the triumphant death on the battle-field and in the hospital of such as were there called to sleep in

Jesus.

The author has done a good work in selecting what are believed to be truth ful incidents, and stereotyping what otherwise might have been utterly lost to the historians of the war. It is like daguerreotyping the passing ripples of the lake, or the floating motes in the sunbeam. Yet great care and caution are requisite for the verification.

There are chapters on Soldiers of the Cross in the Army, Courage Promoted by Trust in God, Happy Deaths of Brave Men, Incidents of the Camp and Battle-Field, etc.

DANGerfield's Rest; or, Before the Storm. New-York: Sheldon & Co. 1864.

THIS is a well-written novel, in style above the ordinary run of fiction; characters well conceived and well represented, and abounding in sage, philosophic reflections on social life. It portrays well much of the social life or death existing among us prior to the war, and indeed yet prevalent; and whilst some might object to a very few of its implications, it is, on the whole, superior in its truthful delineation of manners and morals, though rather sensational and crime-disclosing.

MUSIC.

PUBLISHED by HORACE WATERS, 481 Broadway:

"This Hand Never Struck Me, Mother.'
'The Little Ballad-Girl.'
'The Dying Drummer.'
'Heart Chimings.'

'Yacht Club Polka Redowa.'
'The Sanitary Fair Polka.'

DEAR KNICK: I am unaccustomed to writing 'KNICK'-names, being an offshoot of that stiff old school which required every syllable in a name to be pronounced, and being a STRANGER to you, I know I should not take the liberty of a familiar friend, and divesting myself of all ceremony call you 'DEAR KNICK.' But what I have written, I have written; and now why.

I have had a great many choice dainties from your Table;' my tastes have been gratified both with its fruits and flowers, and I feel like returning you a small thank-offering. As I am a very humble individual, without name or fame,' I have brought my offering timidly to you in the darkness, so that you may not observe how very humble I really am, and reject both me and it.

It is only a simple flower, taken from a 'Wreath of Wild Flowers from the West,' woven for me by a lovely and charming little maiden, herself a fragrant, beauteous

In Memoriam.

'THOU art gone home, O early crowned

And blest! thou takest our summer hence-the Flower, the tone, the music of our being, all in one Depart with thee.'

Oh! the ceaseless, ceaseless sleeping

Of the eyes ne'er dimm'd with weeping, Where the dew-drops fall;

Oh! the purple sunset dying,

And the lapwing sadly flying

Over Jimmie Hall.

Rains have wildly fallen above him,
But their patter ceased to move him,
Or disturb his sleep:

Flowers have sweetly bloomed around him,
Yet this slumber long hath bound him,
Where the myrtles creep.

Ah! what sweetly-chanted numbers
Can awake him from the slumbers
That have bound him so?
We have waited for his coming,
But where spirit-bands are roaming,
He has gone, I know.

Ah! how bright the sun was shining
Where the myrtle vines were twining
Onward to the stream:

Near where they had laid another,
There they laid our blue-eyed brother
Gently down to dream.

Sadly now the winds are sighing
Round the spot where he is lying,
Still, and cold, and white;
Bearing from that other summer,
Dream, and gush, and moan, and murmur,
Through the air to-night.

And the soft and gentle misting,
Through the maple boughs a-twisting,
Lights upon my head:

And a voice, like some sweet lisper, Stirs the night-winds with the whisper: 'Jimmie Hall is dead!'

All the trees were gently flinging
Shadows where the birds were singing
Loudly in their joy,
And a soft Eolian murmur
Whispers: Ah! no more the summer
Blooms for thee, dead boy!'

Oh! the ceaseless, ceaseless sleeping
Of the eyes ne'er dimmed with weeping,
Where the dew-drops fall;

Oh! the purple sunset dying,
And the lapwing sadly flying
Over Jimmie Hall.

PAMELIA.

Welcome to Colonel Wm. B. McCreery:

WHO tunnelled his way out of Libby Prison. An extract from Hon. C. P. Avery's speech on the occasion, is

worthy of a place in the Table of the American Monthly.

་

'It is the fifth and last act to which I now allude.

'It partakes of both the tragic and the comic.

'I refer to that funny but capital underground by-play, as it might be called in theatrical language, where some of the principal actors disappeared from the confederate stage, in a most mysterious manner, through a trap-door.

'Some of your friends here, particularly your Railroad friends in this vicinity, are extremely anxious to have a talk with you, and if there has been a discovery of a new and improved mode of excavating and successfully removing earth by the use of iron spoons, case-knives and spittoons, they might perhaps adopt it.

'But there has been some wonder expressed, Willie, as to your new Southern mode of using that valuable domestic article known to us as a tunnel. The ordinary use of that ingenious implement is to turn good spirits in. By the improved Southern mode it seems to be slightly reversed, namely, to let choice spirits out; and that, too, without calling to your immediate aid the old family Butler; a new kind of Habeas Corpus, very difficult to be suspended: not being much of a Latin scholar, I should call it a sacred writ of Scapeas Corpus; a patent mode of exchange of prisoners; a new style of cartel, for which I am inclined to believe there is not to be found any precedent in Vattel's Law of Nations or in any of the other elementary works which you used to pore over when a student at law in the classic city of Flint.

'A principle the Rebels call atrocious,

Not to be found in Puffendorf or Grotius.'

'But whether it was according to precedent or not, Willie, you came out, as you deserved, at the big end of the tunnel. You never came out at the little end of the horn in your life, and we have the audacity to say that you never will.

'It was a fair business transaction, having many features of strict commercial usage, and can be easily so proved. The obligation of digging and working, it is so reported, lasted some sixty days with you, just as we dig and work to meet our sixtyday promissory notes. The only difference