ckhead. 'Sir,' said the man, 'all I can say is, that I
found it in the cellar.' The philosopher muttered to himself that an
affirmative conclusion could not be proved in the second figure,--and Mrs.
Aristotle, who was by, was not less effective in her remark, that small
beer was not wine because it was in the same cellar. Both were right
enough: and our philosophers might take a lesson from either--for they
insinuate an affirmative conclusion in the second figure. Great discoverers
have been little valued by established {207} schools,--and they are little
valued. The results of true science are strange at first,--and so are
their's. Many great men have opposed existing notions,--and so do they. All
great men were obscure at first,--and they are obscure. Thinking men
doubt,--and they doubt. Their small beer, I grant, has come out of the same
cellar as the wine; but this is not enough. If they had let it stand awhile
in the old wine-casks, it might have imbibed a little of the flavor."

There are better reviews than I have noticed; which, though entirely
dissenting, are unassailable on their own principles. What I have given
represents five-sixths of the whole. But it must be confessed that the
fraction of fairness and moderation and suspended opinion which the
doctrine of _Spirit Manifestations_ has met with--even in the lower
reviews--is strikingly large compared to what would have been the case
fifty years ago. It is to be hoped that our popular and periodical
literatures are giving us one thinker created for twenty geese
double-feathered: if this hope be realized, we shall do! Seeing all that I
see, I am not prepared to go the length of a friend of mine who, after
reading a good specimen of the lower reviewing, exclaimed--Oh! if all the
fools in the world could be rolled up into one fool, what a reviewer he
would make!

Calendrier Universel et Perpetuel; par le Commandeur P. J. Arson.[352]
Publie par ses Enfans (Oeuvre posthume). Nice, 1863, 4to.

I shall not give any account of this curious calendar, with all its changes
and symbols. But there is one proposal, which, could we alter the general
notions of time--a thing of very dubious possibility--would be convenient.
The week is made to wax and wane, culminating on the Sunday, {208} which
comes in the middle. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, are ascending or waxing
days; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, are descending or waning days. Our six
days, lumped toget