nger recognized by the philosophical historian, who
treats all moral questions and national movements like questions of
natural philosophy,--like social chemistry, in which so puerile a word
as poison has no place. Arsenic is arsenic with certain effects, and
nothing more; and society poisons itself annually to such an amount,
arithmetically expressed.

[Footnote A: _Histoire des Revolutions d'Italie, ou Guelf's et
Gibelins_. Par J. Ferrari. Paris, 1858.]

We ask leave to add two suggestions in favor of the Fijians, both, it
would seem, of philosophic importance. If you do not like the Fijian
national dish,--_national_ in more than one sense,--have the dear
sons of Nature, as Carlyle probably would call them, not the right to
reply,--"We do not like your _sauerkraut_, if you are a German; your
_polenta_, if you are an Italian; your _olla podrida_, if you are a
Spaniard; nor your _grit_, if you are a Dane; your bacon and greasy
greens, if you are a Southerner; nor your baked beans, if you are a
Northerner; nor any other stuff called national dishes,--all of which
are vile, except English roast beef and plum-pudding, and Neapolitan
maccaroni."

The other suggestion is this: Is it likely that Nature has placed the
Fijians exactly in the same meridian with Greenwich, which in some
measure may be called the meridian of civilization, for nothing?--is it
likely that all the solar and cosmic influences which must result from
this fact have really left the Fijian in that state of hyper-brutality
which you think is proved by his _menage_? Is it, we ask, fairly to be
supposed? We think not.

We do not presume to know whether we have carried conviction to the
minds of our readers; but even if we have not,--if we have only been
sufficiently fortunate to give the first impulse to the great inquiry,
we shall be satisfied. If we consider the history of some opinions now
openly preached and vehemently maintained,--how timidly they were
first hinted at, within our own recollection, and with what surprising
rapidity they have risen to an unblushing amplitude, rustling and
sweeping proudly and defiantly along the Broadway of human events
and opinions,--how that which but a lustre ago was wicked is now
virtuous,--we see no reason for despair; and our century may yet witness
the time when it will be considered the highest mixture of philosophic
courtesy and Christian urbanity to make the most graceful semi-lateral
bow, as you pass your