fundamental law of his art, which in thisinstance is beauty of form. He then extends his comparison to painting, endeavoring to show that painters who copy the poets or historians too literally are no real artists, any more than the poets who aim too much at being picturesque and graphic can claim a place among those who are really true to nature and to the essential law of their art, which he maintains to be pre-eminently action. Now, however true it may be that this distinction, rigidly taken, can apply only to the epos and the drama, and that, literally insisted on, it would make sad havoc in other departments of poetry, it is nevertheless, properly understood, an all-important one, and Lessing, by the development of it, has rendered a service both to the fine arts and to literature, which will win honor for his name as long as his language shall be read. It is to be regretted that our limits will not admit of some of the details of this equally original and ingenious examination, in which the author proves himself to be no less eminent as a critic of art than we have seen him to be of the drama. The second of the dissertations named above is scarcely less remarkable than the first, and was much admired by Goethe. The author here shows us how keen and true a sense for the beautiful the ancients evinced even in those subjects which our middle age could associate with nothing but the terrible and ugly. He concludes with the memorable words: "It is only religion misunderstood that can lead us astray from the beautiful. It is a proof of true religion, of true religion properly comprehended, if it everywhere brings us back to the beautiful."

In conclusion, we have, to take a rapid glance at Lessing's religious and philosophical writings, of which he has left us several volumes. These writings belong to various dates, some having been composed while he was a divinity stu dent, others during the last years of his life. Some are purely controversial, as, for example, his Anti-Göze (a reply to an attack from one of his former clerical friends by the name of Goeze); others are attempts to give a more or less positive or didactic form to the results of his reflections. They all exhibit him in the light of an earnest enquirer, as well as of an independent thinker. In his earlier essays of this class he was still more or less orthodox, and from the standpoint of Leibnitz sought to reconcile faith and science, as, for example, in his fragment of "The Christianity of Reason," where he undertook a philosophical explanation of the

Trinity, and in his "Thoughts on the Moravians," in which he defends plain practical Christianity; but this ground he soon abandoned for that of the deists among the French and English, except that, while advocating natural religion, he did not, like the latter, accuse the founders of the positive systems of deliberate imposition. At Breslau we find him bent upon Spinoza and the Fathers at the same time and with equal assiduity, busy with the grand problems of the relation between soul and body, God and nature, and the like; and these studies he subsequently continued, chiefly in connection with Moses Mendelssohn. Some of his positions in reference to the origin and primitive form of the Gospels have found recognition among many of the Protestant theologians of a more recent date. The most important documents of this class, and those which really deserve more special notice, are his Thoughts on the Education of the Human Race" and his "Masonic Dialogues" (Freimanrergespräche). They contain Lessing's maturest reflections and some of his finest writing on this subject. He here, however, passes beyond it into the domain of political philosophy, discussing with equal ability and eloquence some of the weightiest problems connected with the individual and social advancement of the

race.

We have now seen enough of Lessing to convince ourselves that the high place assigned to him in the literary history of his country is not without foundation. If he himself declined the epithet of genius, he was deficient neither in originality nor even invention, but because he was too sensible of that perennial exuberance of fancy and imagination, and of that exhaustless productiveness, which he felt to be the prerogative of but few of the most chosen spirits of the race. His talent, on the other hand, was immense enough to draw within its precincts nearly every department of human knowledge, while his influence on the ensemble of German literature became so vast as justly to entitle him to the appellation of father to all the men of genius, which made Germany illustrious towards the close of the eighteenth century. He will always be regarded as the main representative of that prolific crisis which gave rise to the great poets, philologians, philosophers, theologians, and artists, to whom his country may now justly point with satisfaction and pride. If as a poet he does not pass among the first, his genius as a critic remains unsurpassed, and although he may not rank as a philosopher, he was always both clever and instructive in whatever he undertook

to say about philosophy. What if, in his eagerness to upset the old idols of his day, he was carried too far-dil he not combat for a legacy so precious that even his errors entitle him to respect? True, in the majority of his writings he is rather fragmentary than exhausting, but he is always eminently suggestive, and incites others to work. His antiquarian researches are replete with hints invaluable both to the historian and artist. In all he undertook to treat he added to immense erudition judgment sense, taste, and esprit of the rarest order. As a writer, he and Wieland have ranked as the originators of modern German prose; but we need not hesitate to say that, of the two, Lessing is by far the most distinguished, and his lucid, chaste, and classically charming style has to this day remained almost uurivalled.

ART. VII.—1. An Essay on the Beneficent Distribution of the Sense of Pain. By G. A. ROWELL. Oxford, 1857.

2. Chloroform and its Safe Administration. By W. M. COATES, Surgeon. London, 1858.

3. Ether and Chloroform. By DR. BIGELOW. 1848.

4. Annuaire Général des Sciences Médicales. Par A. CAVASSE. Paris, 1857.

5. On Chloroform and other Anaesthetics; their Action and Administration. By JOHN SNOW, M.D. Edited by B. W. RICHARDSON, M.D. London, 1858.

As man was not destined to scour the prairie nor roam through the forest for his prey, he possesses neither the celerity of the hound nor the strength and agility of the lion; he is endowed neither with the keen scent of the dog nor the far-reaching vision of the lynx; as these faculties were, in him, designed to serve a far different purpose. Therefore his strength is proportioned to the works in which he ordinarily engages; his eye takes in at a glance enough of surrounding objects to enable the mind to pass judgment on them; his power of smell decides what is offensive and what pleasing, without possessing that refinement of acuteness which, as Pope expresses it, might cause us "To die of a rose in aromatic pain."

The wisdom displayed in this adaptation of our organs of sense to the various offices for which they were designed is a pleasing illustration of the beneficent aim of our creation.

But passing beyond this well-proportioned disposition of means to an end, so striking as to arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless, we will discover similar wisdom exhibited in instances where a superficial study would lead to a suspicion of defective construction. When we see the bruised and mutilated victims of a railroad disaster writhing in pain, we are disposed to question the wisdom which has rendered their organization so keenly sensitive,

"Tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agenize at every pore."

We would prefer an obtuseness which, while offering no provision against broken bones and bruised heads, would, at least, exempt us from the accompanying pain. Yet, while finding fault with such economy, we, in reality, take exception to one of the most effectual modes of self-preservation established. The sensitiveness which elicits from the wounded warrior groans of bitter anguish preserved him through the vicissitudes of life to suffer at last in a cause which his sense of duty or patriotism has deemed equal to the sacrifice. Sir Humphrey Davy, while still a young man, and filled with the buoyancy and exuberant life of youth, declared that pain was no evil; that all votaries of science should court it even as a means of promoting the interests of their favorite study. Like most of the hasty inferences of youth, springing from impulse rather than deliberation, this theory soon experienced a severe shock when reduced to practice.

One day the future naturalist was swimming in the favorite brook which ran by his house, when a crab bit his toe, and caused him to roar with pain. The experience caused him to lay aside his theory so hastily adopted, and not till experience, based on more extensive observation, taught him to form a more correct judgment, did he assert that not only was pain no evil, but rather a positive good. A few reflections will attest the truth of this view, and prove the unreasonableness of blaming the provisions of nature before science or experience has demonstrated their advantage. The human frame is constructed in such a manner that organs of vital importance. are often situated near a surface so vulnerable that a bramble or a bodkin, applied with slight force, might penetrate it. Without the bristling envelope of the porcupine, or the tough hide of the rhinoceros, what protection would we have against the innumerable occasions of deep cuts,

wounds, and bruises of every description, to which we are constantly exposed, did not nature make some provision for our safety? This has been accomplished by endowing the skin with a sensibility so keen that, on the slightest violence offered it, an involuntary tear starts to the eye. Were it not for this safeguard against injury, we would press our hand against sharp edges which would sever an artery or a nerve that supplied the part with blood and life; we would approach so near to the fire that the whole surface of the body would be scorched; we would be constantly maiming and disfiguring every inch of our person by blows, bruises, and burns, till the delicate framework would be worn out, or some vital organ become attainted. Works on medicine are replete with instances in which the absence of this inestimable monitor has been attended with these results.

Dr. Carpenter, in his "Principles of Human Physiology," mentions the case of a drover who went to sleep on the platform of a lime-kiln, before the fire was kindled. The carbonic acid evolved from the burning limestone, after the fire was started, induced a state of torpor which left the man entirely insensible to heat; and not till the complete combustion stayed the further evolution of the gas did the poor fellow wake up, with his leg charred, and ascertain the calamity he had suffered. Sir Charles Bell relates the instance of a patient who had lost the sense of heat in his right hand and who, unconscious that the cover of a pan which had fallen into the fire was burning hot, took it out with the utmost deliberation, but to the destruction of the skin on his palm and fingers. Other instances of the same sort might be multiplied, but enough has been said to prove the indispensable necessity of susceptibility to pain-this outlying sentinel ever sleeplessly watching over the precious deposit of life. But, pursuing this inquiry further, we shall discover that the beneficent wisdom which has thus endowed us with what Sir Charles Bell calls "a more effectual defence than if our bodies were clothed with the hide of the rhinoceros," has so distributed it that, as it varies, each variety subserves, in a marvellous way, the office of self-preservation.

Thus, the skin, which is so keenly alive to punctures, cuts, and burns, the sort of accidents to which it is especially liable, is comparatively insensible to severe contusions and strains which assail the inner posts of life. But the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, while insensible to the injuries from which the sensibility of the skin shields them, will wince