CONTENTS OF No. XIII. II.-The Philosophy of Final Causes. By J. MCLAIN SMITH 1. First Principles of a New System of Philosophy. By 2. The Physical Basis of Life-An Essay. By Thomas 3. Problems of Life and Mind. By Geo. Henry Lewes. 4. La Philosophie des Causes Finales. Par M. E. Vacherot. ART. VII.-The Political Future of the Jews. By DAVID KER PAGE. . 135 1. Geschichte der Juden. Von Professor L. Von Grätz. 2. 3. Civil Disabilities of the Jews. By Lord Macaulay. Disraeli. 4. Statistical Reports upon the Condition of the Jews in Russia and Roumania, 1870-9. VIII.-The Intellectual Position of the Negro. By R. T. Greener. 164 1. De la littérature des Nègres, ou Recherches sur leurs facultés intellectuelles, leurs qualités morales et leur 2. Notes on the State of Virginia. By Thos. Jefferson. 3. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by H. A. Washington. 4. Antipathy to the Negro. By James Parton, in North American Review. Nov.-Dec. 1878. IX.-William Black's Novels. By WILLIAM BAIRD . 190 THE National Quarterly Review. JULY, 1880. ART. I.-Zemlja i VoljA. * Ω πόποι ὦ δειλὸν θνητῶ γένος, ὦ δυσάνολβον, ̔Οἷον ἐξ ἐρίδων ἔκ τε στοναχῶν ἐγένεσθε ! EMPEDOCLES. "Industry has such an absolute necessity for liberty in order to prosper and extend, that we do not hesitate to say that its progress is more general and rapid in a disturbed state, if endued with solid liberty, than in a tranquil one if under a system of compression."-CAVOUR in Risorgimento. "When, in these times a man is yielded up to the executioner, if you demand wherefore?" The answer is- because this man has committed a crime.' If you enquire why this man committed a crime, the answer is-silence!... O how wisely did Lord Chesterfield say to his son, when sending him to visit the principal courts of Europe: Go, my son, and see with how little wisdom the world is governed.'"-LOUIS BLANC. On the 14th of April, 1879, St. Petersburg was startled by the report of an attempt on the life of the Czar. An order for the extermination of the Nihilists was immediately issued. The imperial ukase, published in the chief Russian official organ, the Agence Russe, is dated April 17th, 1879, and in its important points, translates as follows: "These crimes, and the absence of repentance in the discovered perpetrators, have directed our attention to the necessity of resorting to extraordinary measures for the summary punishment of the guilty; and of entrusting the Government's faithful servants with the requisite authority for the maintenance of public order. To this end we have seen fit : Ist. To nominate provisional governor-generals at St. Petersburg, Charcow and Odessa, with special extraordinary powers as follows; and to provisionally grant the same rights to the governor-generals at Moscow, Kiew and Warsaw. 2d. Certain hereinafter-mentioned places in neighboring governments have been added to the several commands of the governor-generals of St. Petersburg, Charcow, Odessa, Moscow and Kiew. 3d. In all the places mentioned, the collective local civil. 2d Series: VOL. VII.-NO. I. 1 administration as well as educational institutions of all kinds, shall be subordinated to the governor-generals to the same extent that according to article 46 in the statutes concerning military administration during war,-the governments declared to be under a state of siege, are subordinated to military commanders. 4th. Governor-generals are authorized to put under courtmartial any civilian within their jurisdiction, and to apply the criminal code of war time, and this authority is valid independently of the cases mentioned in the ukase of August 9, last year-to any other kinds of political crimes against administrative order, as well as to those ordinarily provided for in the criminal code. 5th. This rule shall be applied in all cases where, up to date, the accused have not been tried. 6th. Governor-generals are authorized to: A.-Officially banish from a place anybody considered mischievous; B.-Arrest at their own option anybody, without exception, if they deem it necessary ; C-Temporarily or altogether suppress newspapers and journals; D.-And in general to take such measures as are considered necessary for the maintenance of peace." In this astounding ukase the Czar does not seem to have been inspired by the epigram of Metternich,-"You can do anything with bayonets except-sit on them!" Results were soon apparent. The governor-generals, all of them military men, ambitious of the Czar's approval, vied with each other in repressive measures, and made the name of czarism odious not only to the hitherto loyal but to the much less easily roused, indifferent lookers-on. For example, General Gourko, Governor-General of St. Petersburg, expelled 20,000 persons without passports, doubled the number of porters before each residence, whom he made guardians not only of public security and order, but of the loyalty of their employers, thus establishing the most complete and intolerable espionage. General Gourko also made every person in St. Petersburg surrender arms, under heavy penalties; forbade the sale of arms, aminunition, and poisons without a government permit, and commanded that all persons should be within doors by nine o'clock at night; which must have been a wellnigh unbearable deprivation, for in May and June occur the beautiful long twilights of the year. The other governor-generals and governors instituted a similar spy-and-terror system in which everybody was at the mercy of any one's suspicion. "The Governor of Voronez,' says the Golos, "stationed, police sentries throughout the town within sight of each other, and placed a book on a stand in front of his house in which any one could register complaints against the police." The prisons were overflowing with persons who knew nothing of Nihilism, but who were alleged by somebody or other to have said, or evidently been about to say, something uncomplimentary to the Governor-General's good sense! It was inevitable that all the meaner qualities of human nature, private grudge, avarice, groundless malice and gross ambition, should come into tremendous play under such a régime. Nothing that any party or combination of parties could do against czarism, can be compared to the blow it has given itself through this ukase. Instead of one czar with a camarilla* ruling with some sense of obligation and risk, there were in effect six czars with their camarillas ruling irresponsibly, with no motive for action except the stamping out of the last vestige of free aspirations. When, three days before this ukase was issued, Solowieff made his attempt on the Czar's life, the people of St. Petersburg streamed to the palace with thundering acclamation over the Czar's escape, and singing the national hymn Bosche Zara Chrani. And later, when the Czar rode out alone, the people threw themselves down along the route. But, six months afterward, the news of the ingenious and skilful attempt to blow up the train of the Czar en route to Moscow was received by the same people with comparative indifference; and the plot discovered in February for blowing up Kremlin and Czar together on his next visit to Moscow produced hardly more than a ripple of interest. Such was the effect of a multiplicity of czars, which seemed to prepare the people for a change, and to make them willing to receive it through any source or agency. Now what is Nihilism? Who are the Nihilists? Whence The Czar's private council or cabinet. + Lucretian Apathy? Buddhist Nirvana? or Pascal's Pessimism? |