Χ.

VICTORIAN AGE.

A.D. 1837

SUPREMACY OF SCIENCE.-DARWIN, HUXLEY, JOHN

STUART MILL.

UNIVERSALITY OF THE NOVEL. - THACKERAY, DICKENS

GEORGE ELIOT.

GREAT ACTIVITY IN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL RESEARCH.-T. B. MACAULAY, THOMAS CARLYLE.

CULMINATION OF ARTISTIC POETRY UNDER ALFRED

TENNYSON.

PSYCHOLOGICAL POETRY OF ROBERT BROWNING.

HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT OF FEMININE POETIC GENIUS IN ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

FOUNDATION OF ART CRITICISM BY JOHN RUSKIN.

THE POETIC RENAISSANCE. ARNOLD, ROSSETTI, MORRIS,

SWINBURNE.

PREVALENCE OF GERMAN INFLUENCE.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE,

WITH HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND ART NOTES.

A.D. 1837

VICTORIA, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India.

SUPREMACY OF SCIENCE. - DARWIN, HUXLEY, JOHΝ STUART MILL.

THE characteristic feature of the Victorian Age is the great scientific movement which has, within the last quarter of a century, almost revolutionized human ideas respecting religion, nature, man, and morality. The tenor of public thought is scientific. A passionate desire to ascertain scientific truth, to follow Nature's operations in her most remote recesses, to analyze the structure of the material world, and to arrive at comprehensive and authentic conceptions of humanity, has been aroused and stimulated by the brilliant discoveries and writings of a galaxy of scientists. The foremost scientist of the age was by common consent the late Charles Darwin (1809-1882). His first works, relating to geology and natural history, were published in 1836, soon after his return from the scientific expedition which set out in 1831 on board H. M. S. Beagle, and under the direction of the British Government. Other scientific works followed; but his two chief worksthose determining his exalted position among

Coronation of

Victoria, Edward Duke brother to Will

daughter of

of Kent

iam IV.-and Maria Louisa Victoria of

Saxe-Coburg, June 28, 1837. observed," says

"The day was

the historian

Knight,
"throughout
the kingdom as

a general holi

day; with pub

Separation of
Hanover from
Great Britain
on the acces-

his contemporaries were "Origin of Species" (1859) and "Descent of Man" (1871), which created great sensation at home and abroad, and gave rise to intense controversy among scientific circles. The dominant feature of Darwin's theory-popularly known as Darwinism-is the substitution of natural causes for divine or su

sion of Victoria, pernatural determinations, his main thesis being

since by the law of that country a woman could reign only in the lack of male heirs in the royal family.

Insurrections among the working-classes, the most formidable being the strike of the Cotton

that "all organic beings have descended from some one primordial form into which life was first breathed." Darwinism being directly opposed to the traditional opinions of religious men, seemed at first to weaken the very foundations of scriptural belief, and was consequently greeted with considerable hostility. But his doctrinal views are now, with more or less modification, accepted as fundamental principles and facts by many scientists, notably Professor Huxley, one of the most distinguished anatomists of the present day. Among other writers whose works have contributed to the development of modern natural science are Michael Faraday (1791-1867), famous for his discoveries in magnetism and chemical research; Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1874), whom Englishmen regard as the scientific inventor of the electric telegraph; Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), the inventor of the kaleidoscope, and whose optical investigations have led to great improvements in light-houses; Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), active both in astronomy and physics; Sir Will

spinners' Asso- iam Grove (b. 1811), the propounder of the doc

ciation in Scotland in 1837.

trine of Correlation and Conservation of Physical Forces; the eloquent scientific lecturer, John Tyndall (b. 1820), who in conjunction with Professor Huxley entered upon those investigations of glaciers which have been productive of most important results, and whose later researches on Radiant Heat are of great interest and value; H. F. Talbot (1800-1877), who in 1841 discovered the process of photography called after him Talbotype; the geologists, Lyell, Buckland, Sedgwick, and Hugh Miller; the astronomer, Airy; the ethnologists, Latham and Lubbock.

Rise of the political party

Chartists-a

composed chiefly of the

working

classes, who in 1838 embodied their principles in a document called "The

In Metaphysical Science there has also been great activity. The English Psychological School, whose distinguishing characteristic is its explanation of all mental phenomena by the association of ideas, and which began in the preceding age with Hartley and James Mill, has been continued by numerous thinkers - Vote by Bal

notably John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Alexander Bain, and Herbert Spencer. Mill was a prolific writer in the departments of criticism, philosophy, and political economy. His chief works are "A System of Logic" (1843), "Principles of Political Economy" (1861), "Utilitarianism" (1862), "An Essay on the Subjection of Women." He is best known as a political economist and woman's rights advocate. As a philosopher he has been filed with Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Hartley, and Comte. "He is indebted to Hume for Sensationalism, and to Hartley for his Associationalism, while, in accordance with Comte, he adopts Phenomenalism." He is opposed to both the School of Kant and the Scotch School of Common-sense. Courtney has pronounced his system to be transitional between the sensationalism of Hume and the scientific empiricism of Bain, Spencer, and G. H. Lewes. It is with the last three that this philosophic school may be said to have reached its highest development. By them Science and Metaphysics have been combined, and to sensationalism have been applied the great

which

People's Charthe six leading

points were: 1. Universal Suffrage; 2.

lot; 3. Annual Parliaments; 4. Electoral

Districts; 5.

Abolition of

Property Qual