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as he says a difference in degree does not so justify; and we have no hesitation in affirming (with Mr. Darwin) that between the instinctive powers of the coccus and the ant there is but a difference of degree, and that, therefore, they do belong to the same kingdom; but we contend it is quite otherwise with man. Mr. Darwin doubtless admits that all the wonderful actions of ants are mere modifications of instinct. But if it were not so -if the piercing of tunnels beneath rivers, &c., were evidence of their possession of reason, then, far from agreeing with Mr. Darwin, we should say that ants also are rational animals, and that, while considered from the anatomical stand-point they would be insects, from that of their rationality they would rank together with man in a kingdom apart of rational animals.' Really, however, there is no tittle of evidence that ants possess the reflective, self-conscious, deliberate faculty; while the perfection of their instincts is a most powerful argument against the need of attributing a rudiment of rationality to any brute whatever.

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We seem then to have Mr. Darwin on our side when we affirm that animals possessed of mental faculties distinct in kind should be placed in a kingdom apart. And man possesses such a distinction.

Is this, however, all that can be said for the dignity of his position? Is he merely one division of the visible universe coordinate with the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms?

It would be so if he were intelligent and no more. If he could observe the facts of his own existence, investigate the co-existences and successions of phenomena, but all the time remain like the other parts of the visible universe a mere floating unit in the stream of time, incapable of one act of free self-determination or one voluntary moral aspiration after an ideal of absolute goodness. This, however, is far from being the case. Man is not merely an intellectual animal, but he is also a free moral agent, and, as such—and with the infinite future such freedom opens out before him-differs from all the rest of the visible universe by a distinction so profound that none of those which separate other visible beings is comparable with it. The gulf which lies between his being as a whole, and that of the highest brute, marks off vastly more than a mere kingdom of material beings; and man, so considered, differs far more from an elephant or a gorilla than do these from the dust of the earth on which they tread.

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Thus, then, in our judgment the author of the Descent of Man' has utterly failed in the only part of his work which is really important. Mr. Darwin's errors are mainly due to a

radically

radically false metaphysical system in which he seems (like so many other physicists) to have become entangled. Without a sound philosophical basis, however, no satisfactory scientific superstructure can ever be reared; and if Mr. Darwin's failure should lead to an increase of philosophic culture on the part of physicists, we may therein find some consolation for the injurious effects which his work is likely to produce on too many of our half-educated classes. We sincerely trust Mr. Darwin may yet live to furnish us with another work, which, while enriching physical science, shall not, with needless opposition, set at naught the first principles of both philosophy and religion.

ART. III.-1. Das Reichsgesetzblatt. Wien.

2. Oesterreich und die Bürgschaften seines Bestandes. Von Dr. Adolph Fischhof. Wien, 1870.

3. Federation oder Realunion. Von Dr. W. Lustkaudl. Wien, 1870.

4. Des Oesterreichers Grundrechte und Verfassung. Wien, 1868. 5. Oesterreich seit dem Falle Belcredi's. Unsere Zeit.' Vol. V. Nos. 2, 4, 9, 12, 15.)

A

good deal has been written lately about 'New America' and New Russia,' but no one has attempted to give Englishmen anything like a detailed description of New Austria. And yet it would be difficult to point to any country in the course of the world's history which, in the short space of four years, has so completely cast away old traditions and assumed a new political and social character, as this old home of despotism, the last depositary of the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire.

Peace politicians may say that a war always does more harm than good to the nations which engage in it. Perhaps it always does, at any rate, morally speaking, to the victors: but that it does not to the vanquished, Austria stands as a living evidence. Finally excluded from Italy and Germany by the campaign of 1866, she has cast aside her dreams of foreign domination, and has set herself manfully to the task of making a nation out of the various conflicting nationalities over which she presides. It does not require much insight to perceive that as long as she held her position in Germany this fusion was hopeless. The overwhelming preponderance of the German element made any approach to a reciprocity of interests impossible. The Germans always were regarded as sovereigns, the remaining nationalities as subjects; it was for these to command, for those to obey. In

like manner, it was impossible for the Austrian Government to establish a mutual understanding with a population which felt itself attracted-alike by the ties of race, language, and geographical position-to another political union. Nay more, as long as the occupation of the Italian provinces remained as a blot on the Imperial escutcheon, it was impossible for the Government to command any genuine sympathy from any of its subjects. But with the close of the war with Prussia these two difficulties-the relations with Germany and the relations with Italy-were swept away. From this time forward Austria could appear before the world as a Power binding together for the interests of all, a number of petty nationalities, each of which was too feeble to maintain a separate existence. In short, from the year 1866 Austria had a raison d'être, whereas before she had

none.

It is proposed in the following remarks, first to describe Austria as she was after Sadowa; secondly, to give an account of the main events which have accomplished her political transformation; thirdly, to describe her as she is, and to glance at the probable future which awaits her.

A short preliminary account of the complicated political machinery obtaining in Austria will be necessary, inasmuch as ignorance on this point would render much of what is to follow unintelligible. Briefly then, the Empire is divided into a number of provinces, and the population of each province into three groups or classes. The first group consists of the great landlords (Grossgrundbesitzer), the second of the commercial men belonging to the towns, markets, and trade-guilds, the third of the inhabitants of the country parishes (Landgemeinde). Each of these groups has the privilege of electing a certain number of members to the provincial Parliament (Landtag). To take a typical instance (for the proportions vary in the different provinces), in Bohemia the great landlords elect 70 members, the towns and markets 87, and the country parishes 79. In addition to this, the archbishop and bishops of each province sit in the Landtag by right of office. The great landlords elect their members, as a rule, en masse; the remaining two groups are divided into a number of voting-divisions, each of which has the right of electing a certain definite number of members. Thus the country parishes are grouped together into political circles (Wahlbezirke), and each circle elects one member. The competence of the Landtage is twofold. They are (1) supreme in certain questions of local administration; (2) they elect from their own body members for the Reichsrath, or central Parliament, which meets in Vienna. The method of election is as follows. The three groups or classes are

all

all represented by certain fixed numbers. Thus, in Bohemia, the great landlords send 15, the towns 20, and the parishes 19 members to the Reichsrath. But the members of the three groups do not respectively choose their own delegates. The whole Landtag votes in each case, but its election is confined, as the case may be, to one of the groups. This group-system was the invention of Schmerling, who was Premier in 1861, and its object was to give an artificial preponderance to the landlords, whose votes were most easily influenced by Court persuasion. The Reichsrath consists of an Upper and Lower House (Herren- und Abgeordnetenhaus). The Upper House contains (1) a number of hereditary peers of different ranks, (2) the Prince-Cardinals and Archbishops of the Empire, (3) a certain number of life-peers, among whom may be found well-known statesmen, lawyers, generals, poets, &c. The Lower House contains 203 members-a certain definite number being elected by the Landtag of each province, Bohemia sending 54, Galicia 38, Moravia 22, Lower Austria 18, &c.

Perhaps no country since the days of the late Roman Empire ever found itself in a more wretched condition than Austria in the winter of 1866. An ecclesiastical despotism had for years. crushed all the free thought of the nation: a civil despotism had crushed all its political life, and had now added to its many sins the crowning sin of a crushing military failure. Popular education was by legal sanction in the hands of the priests: there was no Ministerial responsibility: Parliament had lost control even of the public purse; and a heavy deficit threatened national bankruptcy. In addition to these evils the different nationalities, which had hitherto been kept in order by the sword, showed open signs of revolution, and the weak policy of Belcredi's Ministry had neither the strength to control, nor the sagacity to pacify them.

It was under these auspices that Baron Beust, on the 7th of February, 1867, took office under Franz Joseph. His programme may be stated as follows. He saw that the day of centralism and imperial unity was gone past recall, and that the most liberal Constitution in the world would never reconcile the nationalities to their present position, as provinces under the always detested and now despised Empire. But then came the question-Granted that a certain disintegration is inevitable, how far is this disintegration to go? Beust proposed to disarm the opposition of the leading nationality by the gift of an almost complete independence, and, resting on the support thus obtained, to gain time for conciliating the remaining provinces by building up a new system of free government.

It would be out of place to give a detailed account of the well

known

known measure which converted the Austrian empire' into the 'Austro-Hungarian monarchy.' It will be necessary, however, to describe the additions made by it to the political machinery. The Hungarian Reichstag was constructed on the same principle as the Austrian Reichsrath. It was to meet in Pesth, as the Reichsrath at Vienna, and was to have its own responsible ministers. From the members of the Reichsrath and Reichstag respectively were to be chosen annually sixty delegates to represent Cisleithanian and sixty to represent Hungarian intereststwenty being taken in each case from the Upper, forty from the Lower House. These two Delegations,' whose votes were to be taken, when necessary, collectively, though each Delegation sat in a distinct chamber, owing to the difference of language, formed the Supreme Imperial Assembly, and met alternate years at Vienna and Pesth. They were competent in matters of foreign policy, in military administration, and in Imperial finance. At their head stood three Imperial ministers-the Reichskanzler, who presided at the Foreign Office, and was ex officio Prime Minister, the Minister of War, and the Minister of Finance. These three ministers were independent of the Reichsrath and Reichstag, and could only be dismissed by a vote of want of confidence on the part of the Delegations.

The Ausgleich' or scheme of federation with Hungary is, no doubt, much open to criticism, both as a whole and in its several parts. It must always be borne in mind that administratively and politically it was a retrogression. At a time in which all other European nations-notably North Germany-were simplyfying and unifying their political systems, Austria was found doing the very reverse. It is easy to point out the inconvenience of a state of things which makes an annual transfer of the seat of Government necessary, and forces the Imperial Parliament and Ministry to reside every other year at a distance from the Ambassadors of the foreign Courts. It might be urged that it was foolish to gratify Hungarian vanity by making a second capital, and absurd to have no single chamber where members of each kingdom could debate in common on subjects of Imperial interest. The true answer to these objections is, that the measure of 1867 was constructed to meet a practical difficulty. Its end was not the formation of a symmetrical system of government, but the pacification of Hungary. The Magyars, who with their feudal institutions and commercial backwardness are still semi-barbarians, required the concession of the capital as a sign and symbol of their independence. They refused to admit the constitution of a supreme Imperial assembly, because they foresaw that German would be spoken in such an assembly, and were unwilling

to

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